


Eden Code

by Morphiina



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Amputee!Tony, Angst, BAMF Loki, BAMF Tony, Banter, Drug Use, Gore, Guns, Human!Loki, Humor, M/M, Non-Descriptive Mentions of Past Dub-Con/Non-Con, Pining, Science Fiction, Slavery, Slow Burn, Smut, Survival, Technomancer!Loki, Violence, alcohol use, bad language, murder/death, some horror, the genre not the game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2020-10-05 00:22:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 54,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morphiina/pseuds/Morphiina
Summary: (Cyberpunk AU)In the trash-heap world of Sakaar, Tony is a scrapper who makes a decent living scrounging for parts and assembling them into useful machines. On the other side of the city, Loki is an enslaved technomancer forced to fight in the Contest of Champions.When Tony meets the undefeated fighter, his world is turned upside down as he finds himself on the run from the Grandmaster, stolen Champion in tow, on their way across the planet to a place neither of them are entirely sure exists.





	1. A Dog Eat Dog World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy [my Cyberpunk Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2LwJRMqtdYMzkUjsFPXOum?si=4sF9QBMQRXubeO1B4YkmyA) for your mood-setting and listening pleasure.  
(Will be adding more songs as I go.)

  
([Full Size](https://i.ibb.co/QDqBpys/3.jpg))

_ Fear not, for you are found. You are home, and there is no going back. No one leaves this place. But what is this place? The answer is __Sakaar__. Surrounded by cosmic gateways, __Sakaar__ lives on the edge of the known and unknown. It is the collection point for all lost and unloved things. Like you. _

Sakaar. An ever-changing world constantly bordering on ecological collapse, a patchwork madhouse where if you don’t find a foothold fast, you’ll find yourself eaten alive. A wasteland junkyard that would be barren if it wasn’t constantly being fed new life forms to replace the dead ones. With its toxic water and ‘soil’ made up of wind-whipped artificial particulates, this plastic desert has no indigenous ecosystem to speak of, and plantlife never did find purchase. The only things that manage to survive between the crevices of the garbage heaps are the forcibly transplanted fungi, extremist microbes, and animals that thrive on varied, scavenged diets. 

Sakaar is constantly evolving. As new species are tossed here, some survive, take a foothold and push something else out. Or the something else evolves to cope. It's like you’re trying to paint something, and someone keeps splattering new colors on your canvas and you have to keep working at incorporating the new colors before the paint dries. 

As a certain someone in a certain movie once eloquently put: “Life, uh, finds a way.” 

The ecology of Sakaar is a mirror image of Sakaar itself, really. A colorful patchwork of lost things, things that don't belong but you stitch it all together anyway because it's the only thing you can do here. Where the only resources are the leftovers from other worlds. The unwanted things. Houses and buildings are made of found things. Tools are jerry-rigged from broken parts. Roads are made by melting the artificial particulates that make up the topsoil directly. Materials melted down and reformed into new shapes. Nothing goes to waste. It’s a recycler’s paradise. 

It's a mess. A colorful, chaotic, borderline apocalyptic mess. But it's home. 

Sakaar is home. 

A very lucrative home if you’re good at picking through trash to find treasures, and better at knowing how to put those treasures to use. The life of a scrapper isn't easy. Long hours, sun blisters, sweat, glass and metal cuts, dangerous animals and the smell of rotting garbage in your hair for days. But you can carve out a decent living on Sakaar as a scrapper. 

Tony Stark would know. He’d been a scrapper and engineer for as long as he could remember. 

Today, though, he had the day off from scrounging and tinkering in order to do the other important bit of the business. Selling your own products meant legwork, networking, self-promotion and personal delivery if you didn't want a dealer to take a significant cut of your earnings. Thankfully Tony was pretty good at that, considering his savvy smooth-talking and general outgoing nature. 

Tony had never been this far to the other side of Sakaar City, despite having lived his entire life here. It was a massive, seemingly neverending metropolis, though; so that wasn't too surprising. Not to mention this wasn't really the place for a lowly scrapper. This area was where the richer folk lived in luxury homes nearer the Grandmaster’s Palace and Sakaaran Arena. Everything was cleaner here. Still as colorful as the rest of the city in its neons against black and marbled rainbow streets, but everything was placed symmetrically and intentionally rather than a haphazard patchwork just to get the job done. 

The people that walked around wore the latest high fashion trends in bright colors, glowing cybernetic parts, eyepieces, half-cloaks and avant garde headwear. LED tubes woven through hair, layered shoulder pieces, blinking skinsuits, bold and colorful makeup and oversized boots. There was no end to the variety; fashion designers made good living off coming up with the next weird silhouette. Tony never really understood the appeal, but to each their own. 

This part of the city had no screeching street vendors, sketchy fellows in dark alleyways that promised contraband, or anyone stumbling around smashed, blazed or both. Obnoxious neon lights and holograms didn't bombard the senses here like they did downtown. Even the AR-Scape was tidy; none of the typical ridiculous avatars, excessive floating interactables, digital animals running around, virtual graffiti, or colorful art installments. The shops were neat and quiet. They didn't need to be loud to draw customers. You didn't open a shop this part of the city as an unknown entity. You were here because the Grandmaster wanted you here, and that meant you never had to worry about slow business. The Grandmaster kept his friends cozy. 

The fact that Tony was here now meant his networking was paying off, and he had bigger clients to look forward to. It was a huge step for him. This hot shot he was meeting this afternoon would undoubtedly have more work for him when he saw the quality of Tony’s work; and where there was one rich asshole, there were many. Hell, he might even get the chance to cater to the Grandmaster himself one day. To be a Grand Engineer of the Palace was the ultimate dream. No more scrounging; the lowly scrappers and Direwolves brought you all the shit you needed to work with. Unlimited toys to play with. Unlimited funds. A penthouse in the palace. That was Tony’s dream. Had been his dream his entire life. 

But for now, Tony felt very out of place. 

He wore his nicest clothes, but they were still tattered around the edges. His jacket and pants, though he’d tried very hard to keep them nice, were worn, frayed and had a few pest animal chew holes in areas. His black boots were scuffed, and one of the buckles was broken and hanging loose. His T-shirt had a tattered cutout for the glowing arc reactor embedded in his chest, though he’d tried to stitch it as tightly against the metal as he could. His mechanical prosthetic right arm was scratched up from a life of digging through hazardous material, red coating chipping away here and there, and the metal wasn’t smooth and shiny like the cybernetics of the residents here. He looked like a street rat trying to look fancy. Which happened to be exactly what he was. 

He supposed he might be able to pass it all off as some kind of new trend, if anyone asked. Bullshit the name of some made up designer. Sure would be funny to see some rich folk frantically trying to seek out a non-existent designer so they wouldn't miss out on a non-existent fad. He kind of hoped someone would ask, now. 

Yet no one really paid him any mind as he strode down the rainbow street, looking around at all the different shops like a tourist. He couldn’t help dreaming about living here, one day. Not exactly his scene, he really couldn’t imagine wearing a quarter of the dumb shit outfits he saw wandering around out here and trying to sleep without street noise sounded like sleepless nights; but the monetary implications, the limitless tinkering potential? That was appealing. 

The further Tony walked, the greater the shadow of the Sakaaran Arena became. It was a massive building that could be seen from many parts of the city, but the scale was truly impressive the closer he got. It was no Palace of the Grandmaster; in its outlandish totem pole design, it was the tallest building in the city, stretching so high you could see from even BEYOND the city; but it was the second greatest construct the metropolis had to offer with its flashing lights and holograms that displayed upcoming fights and Champion stats. None of the names really meant anything to Tony, as he’d never actually followed the Contest of Champions. It was the sport of the city, televised throughout the cultured world, in fact; people came from cities all over to watch the games. Merchandise was everywhere. But gladiator fights were really never Tony’s thing. He had better things to put his mind on. 

Tony strode up to the ticket booth and leaned against the window. “I’m expected by a Mr. Salis in his box.” He held up his wrist and flash an AR pass. 

The person with purple skin behind the glass straightened up and pasted a wide smile on their noseless face that didn’t quite reach their eyes as they scanned in the pass digitally. “Of course... Mr. Stark.” They approved the pass with a wave of their wrist and snapped their fingers to bring over a small male human in bellhop attire. “This one will lead you to the honorable Mr. Salis.” 

The bellhop pressed his fists together and bowed. “Right this way, Mr. Stark. May I take your bag?” 

“No, thank you.” 

Well, only the mega rich could afford a luxury box at the Sakaaran Arena, not overly surprising he was getting the full honors as a guest. Tony followed the bellhop down the orange hallways, before they veered left and entered an elevator. The bellhop boy was silent, his back straight as a board. Tony didn’t bother trying to make conversation. These people were used to being ignored by the wealthy unless they needed something, he might accidentally cause the boy to have a meltdown not knowing how to respond if he tried to start a conversation. Not that Tony was wealthy or important or anything. But it’s not like this kid knew that. 

The elevator arrived on the correct floor and Tony followed the boy down the now-blue hallway. He absent-mindedly wondered if the colors had any meaning. The Grandmaster’s favorite color was blue, as everyone knew, so did blue hallways equate to ‘this is the floor where the important people are’? He supposed if he was ever to become a high-class citizen, he would have to learn these things. The subtle codes and symbols. 

“Just in here, Mr. Stark.” The boy opened a sliding door with a wave of his wrist, and stood aside to gesture towards the open doorway. “Mr. Salis is expecting you.” 

“Appreciate it.” Tony dipped his head and walked into the doorway, and the door slid shut behind him with a hiss. He took in his new environment, analyzing everything that came to his eyes in moments. It was a decent-sized room, with couches and tables and a mini bar manned by a well-dressed servant. Mr. Salis had several guests of varying species in obnoxious avant garde outfits, laughing drunkenly as they sipped on glasses of neon liquids and took hors d'oeuvres from servants walking around with golden platters. Several scantily-clad humanoids of varying genders sauntered around for the pleasure of the guests, some sitting in laps and flirting loudly. He could smell fragrant plumes of drug vapor, perfumes collided in the air, and the sickly-sweet scent of the fat little kino birds that sat here and there, producing their saccharine, bitter gum often put in drinks as a topper. It was overwhelming, but Tony was determined not to show it. He finally spotted Mr. Salis where he stood leaning against the glass observation wall that faced the inside of the arena, and walked over. 

“Mr. Salis.” Tony greeted, and the man turned and raised his eyebrows. 

“Heeyy, there he is!” Mr. Salis was a human man with reddish skin, a stocky build accentuated by the shoulder pads on his fancy robes, and a smell about him like strong cologne. He was bald, and his skull was lined with glowing tubing. His round smile was friendly and full of false, purple teeth, but his black eyes were dangerous. He threw an arm around Tony’s shoulders in an overly aggressive sense of familiarity. “Just the man I’ve been dying to meet!” 

“_Very _pleased to meet you in person as well, Mr. Salis.” Tony turned on the charm. “Not that I don’t love talking to your right-hand-man, but he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.” 

Mr. Salis’s laugh boomed, and he slapped Tony on the back before withdrawing his arm. “I like you already, Mr. Stark. I have a feeling we’re gonna get along smoothly. I only hope the quality of your work is up to par with the quality of your person.” He grinned expectantly, gesturing as he spoke with those sausage-shaped fingers and blue shining nail polish. 

Tony took that as his cue to pull off his backpack. “I’ll let you be the refined judge of that, sir.” 

“Right over here.” The man gestured to a table and they walked over to it. “Let’s see what you got. Georgie absolutely _assured _me of your quality craftmanship.” 

Tony placed the backpack gingerly on the table and unzipped it. He reached in and pulled out a thick, hefty gun, and placed it on the table. “I incorporated all of your requests, and added in a few ease-of-use features of my own design.” Mr. Salis hungrily reached out and began to examine the gun. “Heat-seeking, electron-disruptive plasma cannon in an easy-to-carry compact size. Perfectly balanced, shake-stabilizing. She’s programmed with a target-guiding system of my own design. Nearly eliminates all possibility of collateral damage. She’ll hit the target you want and only the target you want. Perfect for hitting dangerous suspects in crowds.” 

“Let’s test her out, shall we?” 

“...In here, sir?” 

“You did say it’s good for hitting the target in crowds.” The man grinned maniacally. “Let’s test that out.” 

Sounded reckless for someone who didn’t have any guarantee that Tony wasn’t talking out of his ass; but Tony was pretty confident in his own weapon, so he showed the man how to use it. He did make it pretty user friendly, so the wealthy man understood it quickly. 

That was when Mr. Salis lifted it up and shot a plasma orb off at an unsuspecting purple kino bird sitting on the bar, trigger pulling off with an electrical hum. The poor creature screeched in surprise as, in less than a second, the plasma burst over its body and it disintegrated in moments. Nothing but a pile of melting feathers on the bar table. Everyone in the room was staring in shock, especially those who had jumped away from the immediate firing area. The bartender had an expression that screamed, ‘I don’t get paid enough for this bullshit’. They all appeared to be fine, though, to Tony’s relief. The blast had hit its target, and only its target. 

Mr. Salis laughed so hard it felt like the box was shaking, “Excellent! Most excellent!” He set the gun down on the table and everyone went back to what they were doing, albeit a tad more uneasily. Tony reached over and flicked the safety on, just in case. Mr. Salis slapped him on the back again, and damn if there wasn’t going to be a bruise there tomorrow. “Mr. Stark, you are quite possibly one of the most promising young engineers I’ve ever met! I’ve never seen this technology before, even in the Palace!” 

Tony smiled humbly, although inside he felt like running around and pumping his fist in victory. “I’m just pleased you’re happy with my product, Mr. Salis.” Fuck if that was true. Tony spent three sleepless nights on this gun. This annoying little man better tell all his wealthy friends about him. 

“Ah well, there will be no need for meekness on my payroll, my friend.” Mr. Salis winked, and pulled up his AR interface. “What did you and my man agree on? 12k?” 

“Hmm, I believe it was 10k, sir.” Tony lied. It had been 12k, but Tony wanted to sound honest. 

“Bah, this cutting edge technology is worth 15k at the least!” The stocky man haphazardly keyed in the 15k and sent it off to Tony’s account. Tony accepted the money with a gracious smile and bow, though that voice in his head really wanted him to shout that this damned gun was worth at least 30k. Ah, well. Money wouldn’t be an issue when he was a Grand Engineer one day. 

“Now then, with business concluded.” Mr. Salis rubbed his grubby hands together with an alternating purple-toothed grin and turned back towards the glass wall. “You got any bets placed today, my boy?” 

“I don’t usually watch, to be honest.” 

Mr. Salis raised his thick eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t watch the Contest? The only sport worth a damn in this city?” He almost sounded irritated at the audacity that someone might actually not care for the sport he was so passionate about. 

“Oh, I _would _for certain, if I had the time.” Tony quickly recovered, fearing offending the man. “The life of an independent scrapper and engineer doesn’t afford much time for such luxuries, I’m afraid.” 

The man visibly relaxed and nodded in understanding, then slapped Tony on the back _again_. “Well, you’re in for a treat, my boy!” He chortled, and then headed towards the couch that faced out into the arena, motioning for Tony to follow. “The reigning Grand Champion’s fight is about to begin! He never fails to entertain.” Tony didn’t know much about the sport, but he did know the Grand Champion was supposed to be the greatest warrior of them all, topping the charts and remaining undefeated for a long time. Obviously, since defeat meant you were dead. So as long as you were alive, you were undefeated. 

Tony followed, accepting a glass of some neon pink drink with a lump of kino bird gum that he really hoped wasn’t from the one that had died tragically by his gun before sitting down on the couch beside his client. Not too close to be uncomfortable, but not too far to give the impression he didn’t want to be in the man’s presence. Tony had calculated the exact distance long ago. He’d really rather leave now, head back home and get back to work. He really didn’t care to see enslaved people murder each other for sick entertainment. But building client relationships was important, and this was the most promising one yet. He couldn’t afford not to do anything the man wanted right now. 

So there he sat, sipping on his drink and relaxing into the couch which probably had all sorts of bodily fluids he didn’t want to think about stained onto it, half-listening to Mr. Salis ramble on about all the different Champions currently still alive, which ones he was betting on, the ones his daughter had crushes on, the ones he was disappointed to have seen be slaughtered horrendously. He even gave Tony advice on how he can bet on them in the future. If Tony was good at one thing, it was pretending to be interested in a conversation, and boy was he pulling out all the stops right now. 

Finally, the booming sound of the Grandmaster’s voice came over the intercom, startling Tony and causing Mr. Salis to stop mid-ramble and lean forward to look out into the arena. “Oooh, here we go!” He said excitedly. 

The Grandmaster’s massive hologram materialized into the middle of the ring in all his shining glory, blue metallic face paint shimmering, golden robes flowing, the crowd screaming and cheering. “Wow, look at all of you!” The Grandmaster laughed. “What a show, what a night! Who’s having fun?” The crowd cheered louder. “Please, I’m your host, big round of applause for all of our undercard competitors... who died so gruesomely. Good sports. What a show! What a night! And now, without further ado... it’s main event time!” 

Everyone clapped, including Mr. Salis, who got to his feet to cheer, so Tony did the same out of respect. As they sat back down, the other guests in the booth had crowded around the couch and window to watch. Tony was now squeezed between Mr. Salis and a rather... tentacled... person. He lounged, legs crossed, trying to appear as casual and comfortable as possible; but inside he could feel his claustrophobic anxiety increasing. He tried to focus on the arena instead, and sipped at the drink, hoping it would take the edge off. 

The building boomed with the cheering and the drumbeats as one of the two massive arena doors slowly slid up and open. Out from the shadows stepped a fearfully massive man, bathed in the blue lights of the arena; the Champion, Tony assumed. Had to be. He looked like he was twice Tony’s height, and bulkier than two weightlifters combined. He had a massive cybernetic arm and chest plate, lit tubing along his spine and a plate crossing his temple and one eye. He bellowed and roared, and the crowd thrummed with excitement. A holographic information card materialized across the arena walls; apparently this man was called The Whale, after a creature known only from legends passed down from the original Midgardian humans that had fallen to Sakaar centuries ago. 

Then the other door opened on the opposite side of the arena, and Tony’s eyes widened with an entirely different kind of surprise. 

Out of this door stepped a... regular-sized person. Hell, scrawnier than a regular-sized person. Kid looked _teeny _facing down that giant. Hardly wearing much armor other than metal knee-high boots, a chest plate, and a weird little golden, horned circlet covering his forehead, choppy raven hair fighting to escape around it. This was the kind of person the Grandmaster sends out to face his ‘reigning champion’? Cannon fodder? No wonder he was a reigning champion; but why the hell was anyone excited about it? No way this kid was gonna last 5 seconds; what kind of ‘main event’ was this? 

“Jeez, that little guy’s about to get slaughtered.” Tony felt himself say. He glanced over at Mr. Salis, and to his surprise, the man had a smirk on his face. An excited glint in his eye. 

“Oh, yes, there will be quite the slaughter.” 

Tony stared incredulously. Was this seriously what the entire world was raving mad about? Massive titans squashing scrawny little twigs under their feet with no hope of retaliating? Tony knew Sakaar was a sick world, but this made him feel that much more nauseous. 

The massive screens above the center of the arena that had been panning across the crowd and focusing on dance and kiss cams now settled on the figures in the arena, who stood facing each other off, awaiting the indication to begin the match. The Whale was bellowing, raising his massive arms and trying to get the crowd pumped. The little guy just stood there calmly. To Tony’s surprise, when the camera panned to his pale, sharp face, he didn’t seem very fazed by the fact that he was about to die a gruesome death. Those vibrant green eyes were dull and disinterested. Was he drugged or something? Tony thought he’d rather be drugged facing certain death like this too. 

The Grandmaster was saying something, probably introducing the contestants. Tony missed the first bits of it. “What can we say about him? Well, he’s unique. There’s none like him. I feel a special connection with him. He’s undefeated. He's the reigning... He’s the defending... ladies, gents and everything in between, I give you...” Tony couldn’t hear much of it over the roar of the crowd, especially the excited shrieking immediately in his ears by the guests around him. The tentacled person next to him was waving all their boneless appendages around, and slapped Tony with them a couple of times. But Tony didn't notice over his sheer disbelief, how people could flip out this much over a clearly unfair fight. He found himself shrinking back into the couch, wishing he wasn’t here right now to watch this. He wondered if he could get away with looking elsewhere, but he didn’t want to risk offending Mr. Salis. 

Was this what he had to look forward to, when he became a Grand Engineer? Watching shit like this? Pretending to enjoy this sadism? 

“Today, the puny god falls!” The loudspeakers boomed with the sound of The Whale’s deep, growling voice as he pointed challengingly at the little man as they slowly circled each other at a distance. 

“Asleep of boredom, perhaps.” Came the unimpressed reply. Tony raised his eyebrows in surprise at the raven-haired young man’s bravery, and unexpectedly posh accent. 

The Whale glared down at him as he took his massive, spiked mace from his back, holding it threateningly between his hands. The little man reached down and pulled a pair of hilts from his thigh sheathes; when he flicked them downward, a glowing, green blade the length of his forearm extended out of each. Plasma blades, perhaps? Good choice, if he had any intention of lasting more than a few seconds in the ring. Wouldn’t do much good once that mace came down and smashed him into a pulp, though. 

The cheering grew with anticipation as the pair circled each other slowly, and erupted when finally The Whale roared and charged forward. The dust kicked up behind his feet, massive mace in the air, lunging straight towards the little guy. Tony felt himself wince reflexively, his body screaming at him to look away. Mind flashing with the horrors he was about to witness. Steeling itself for the blood splatter. 

But just as the mace came down, The Whale’s opponent suddenly leapt out of the way in a graceful duck and roll. He leapt to his feet and in a lightning-fast movement, and his blade lashed out and sliced open one of the tubes embedded into The Whale’s back. 

The giant snarled, turning on a dime, the blue glowing liquid spilling out of the sliced tubing. The mace flew out in a long-armed swipe, but the smaller man leapt over it just as it was about to connect with his legs. “Stay still!” The Whale snarled, his other hand lashing out to grab at him. But the smaller man easily hopped out of his grasp, light and nimble on his feet. 

“I move faster than you in my sleep.” The raven yawned. 

They went on like this, The Whale lashing out furiously in every way he could, throwing his massive weight around. He came so close so many times, but the smaller man was always out of the way just in time, quick retaliatory stabs with his blades that nicked the monster here and there, blood streaking out. Tony found himself chewing his nails with anxiety when he let himself start to believe this kid might actually survive this. A few of the tentacled person’s limbs were wrapped around Tony’s arm nervously. Though everything around him was a muted blur, he could hear Mr. Salis and the others seemingly cheering the boy on, he realized with surprise. 

Wait a second. 

Tony tore his eyes away from the tense fight for a second to glance up at the stat card circling the arena. There, he recognized the raven-haired man's image, frozen expression dangerous, and below it read: 

**Loki, “God of Chaos”**   
**Reigning Grand Champion**

Tony’s eyes went wide. The_ little guy _was the Grand Champion?! 

Now he heard it, the crowd chanting in the stands. “Loki! Loki! Loki!” They were rabid with anticipation. Tony felt like he was in an insane dream. How could this scrawny guy regularly beat beasts like The Whale? 

Suddenly, as The Whale had entered a furious rage, covered in little lines and splatters of blood, one of his blind fists connected with Loki’s skull; the metal, spiked knuckles of his cybernetic arm. The young man was knocked off his feet, the circlet went flying, and he landed with a sickening thud as he skid far across the arena. The crowd collectively gasped, screaming at him to get up. Tony was chewing off his thumbnail, eyes wide, leaning forward as he watched the giant advance on the downed Champion like a predator. The camera panned down and zoomed in on Loki. 

The man struggled to push himself up onto his knees, blood gushing down from the side of his head, green eyes wildly looking around. He spotted his circlet on the ground, splattered with blood, dented on the side and one of the horns was snapped in half. He was breathing heavily when he whipped his head around to glare at the giant coming towards him, and his eyes... Tony felt a chill run down his spine. Those were eyes of madness. Of rage, promising death. Tony was only looking at them through a camera and he still felt like he needed to run. 

Loki growled and leapt to his feet. His blades were scattered across the grounds, but he clenched his fists and faced The Whale. 

“Mad I broke your tiara?” The Whale sneered, mace scraping on the ground as he came forward. “Gonna cry about it?” 

“I’m going to kill you in the most painful way possible.” Loki snarled back. 

Weaponless and wounded, Tony didn’t know what this kid thought he was going to do... until something incredible happened. 

The lights that lined the arena walls began flickering, and electricity began arcing up from the ground and the lights towards Loki in lightning flashes. The blinding light encircling his clenched fists and licking his flesh without burning it, purple corona effects flaring. The camera showed his face, and his green eyes were crackling with energy, sparks leaping from the bright irises. He roared in anger, the stadium booming with terrible, earthquaking noise as his body trembled with the growing power. 

“He’s... a technomancer...?” Tony said, in shock. 

But no one was listening to him, they were all on their feet jumping and cheering. 

“Tsk tsk, never mess with another man’s headgear.” Came the voice of the Grandmaster over the intercom. 

“Rip his guts out!” Someone screamed. 

The Whale paled, and started to back away like a frightened animal when Loki began to run, electricity lapping at his footsteps behind him as he launched himself towards the giant with a terrible yell. Energy burst from him, striking at the giant like a snarling animal. The larger man screamed in pain as the sound of his flesh sizzling filled the speakers, and the strength of the impact had knocked him backwards off his feet. He landed on his back with a metal crunch and a loud grunt. 

Loki landed on his torso, boots connecting with his gut, fingers tense and open like claws. He glared down at the man below him. “Any last words?” He spat. 

The Whale met his maddened eyes with a victorious gaze. “I win. I made the great god bleed.” He rumbled. 

Loki’s face twitched with anger, and he began slowly raising his hands, as though pulling something heavy. The Whale screamed in agony, and Tony felt his blood run cold when he realized the metal of his cybernetic parts was coming away in a spray of sparks and blue coolant. The giant’s arm was ripped open, the plate and cybernetic torn away from his temple and blood gushing out, his brain now visible, pulsating and hemorrhaging. 

With one final snarl, Loki clenched his fist and pulled upward, and the giant’s cybernetic heart was ripped from his chest with a sickening strain and rip, the snap of tubing and the splashing of red and blue fluids. The Whale gasped, remaining eye wide as he collapsed back, dead. A bleeding, smoking corpse. 

The crowd erupted into a cacophony, stomping their feet and chanting, the entire stadium rumbling under the roar. Tony felt his eardrums burst with the screaming around him, Mr. Salis red in the face and pumping his fist in the air. Those tentacles whipping at him as the person waved them in hysterical cheering. Even Tony got to his feet, his clapping genuine this time. He really was impressed. He’d never seen anything like this before. Technomancers were a rare mutation among sentient species, and hunted for a variety of reasons. He’d heard about them, but never seen one in action. He had no idea they were capable of doing what this young man did today. He was dying to know more. Maybe if he ever became a Grand Engineer, he’d get a chance to take some scans. If the kid lived that long, anyway. 

On screen, Loki breathed heavily and seemed to fall to one knee where he stood on the bloodied, sizzling torso of his dead foe. Blood dripped down his temple, some of it into his eye, but he didn’t seem to notice. Just stared forward, gaze hard. 

“Oooohh eat your heart out! Haha, wow what a show everyone, what a show but what else can you expect from the man, the myth, the legend? Big round of applause, good show!” The Grandmaster’s image was clapping, amping up the crowd ever more. “And don’t forget to pick up your God of Chaos T-shirts and mugs, available on all floors...” 

Mr. Salis slapped Tony on the back, harder than ever, shit-eating grin on his face. “Well? I said you were in for a treat!” 

“_Very _impressive, I thought he was a goner for sure.” Tony said as enthusiastically as he could. “I see now what makes the Contest the greatest sport in the city.” He said smoothly, pouring on the Kool-aid. 

“Heeeyyy that’s great, maybe I’ll have another ticket for ya next week.” Mr. Salis winked. He seemed genuinely excited about the idea of introducing someone to his favorite sport. Tony could understand that, as annoying as he found the man, and sickening he found the sport. 

Tony raised his eyebrows, anyway, plastering a smile on his face. “That’s mighty generous of you, sir. Maybe next time we can have a friendly little bet between- ah, ow!” All of a sudden, a burst of light and sharp pain erupted in his eye, and he staggered backwards, falling into the couch and clawing at his face. 

“Oh jeez, you alright son...?” 

But Tony couldn’t hear anything over his ringing ears as he pressed his hand to his eye in intense pain. Felt like he’d been cast underwater, a light shining through the waves, piercing him all over. Data flashed through his eye like a needle, repeating symbols, flashing numbers and... and a word... 

** EDEN **

A jolt of electricity shot through his skull and he let out a strangled gasp, and then it was gone. Tony sat there, reeling. When the world around him began to return, he blinked and realized Mr. Salis was looking at him with concern. 

“Ah, sorry about that. Cybernetic eye malfunction. Never go with VisTer, eh?” A lie. Tony made his own cybernetic parts, or improved on existing ones. But it wouldn’t look good for his brand if he told the man that. 

Mr. Salis laughed, “You come down to my firm and we’ll fix you up with a proper one from a good partner of mine.” 

Tony grinned. “I might just take you up on that, sir.” 

Once the man had gone back to talking ecstatically about the fight with his guests, Tony turned his attention back to the arena, getting to his feet and walking forward to the glass. 

“JARVIS, you read me?” Tony said quietly. 

“_Always, __m__a__ster__ Stark._” A posh voice spoke into his mind directly. A voice only Tony could hear. 

“Did you see that data spike?” 

“_I did, sir. _” 

“Any idea where it came from?” 

“I_ triangulated it’s position, sir. It came from down in the arena. Specifically, it seems to have emanated from the Grand Champion._” 

Tony raised his eyebrows, shocked, and whipped his head to look down into the arena. Loki had moved to the center of the ring, collecting his weapons and circlet; seeming, from the surface, to be absorbing the cheering and praise. Bowing his head now and then, a smile and wave here and there. 

But where the camera panned in on his bloodied face, Tony could see the celebration and victory didn’t reach his eyes. Those vibrant greens were not of joy, or relief. Not even pain. 

Those were haunted eyes. Emotionless and dead. 

And from where he stood, there in the center of the arena, the roaring, the lights, Loki glanced up, and Tony could have sworn he was looking right at him. 

\-- 

The halls of the Grandmaster’s Palace reminded Tony of the ones in the Arena. Vibrant, garish colors in clean, blocky stripes. Hideous, in all honesty. Just _pick a color_. 

Tony headed up to the meal pickup window, swiping his key card over the interface. A man came to the window with a plate of multicolored food goop. “Bit early today, Mikey.” The man said. 

“Yeah, clock at the bar fucked up, to think I coulda spent another 30 minutes drinking.” Tony responded. His voice echoed a bit through the stuffy metal helmet that completely covered his face, pushing through the filter he was using to emulate the voice of the guard he was impersonating best he could manage within such a short window of data collection time. Certainly wasn’t perfect, as the man at the window seemed to notice. 

“You sound... funny.” The man frowned. 

“Yeaaahh, think I’m coming down with the silt sniffles.” Tony sighed, taking the tray from the window. 

“Aw jeez, keep your helmet clean, dumbass.” 

Tony waved him off, taking the plate and starting off back down the hall. So far so good. 

Today had been a busy day. A morning spent hacking into the Grandmaster’s Palace mainframe to determine food scheduling, guard profiles, map of the tower, et cetera. Not the easiest feat, sneaking around in that digital labyrinth without arousing suspicion. Tony couldn’t afford to get caught at this. He’d lose any opportunity to get in here legitimately. 

That task completed, he then sat at the bar, watching the guard he had intended to impersonate for hours as he drank and bellowed at the sports holograms running across the long bar table. Studying his personality and speech traits, recording for vocal impersonation data. It wasn’t overly hard to swipe his duffel bag with his uniform and key card, drunk as he was. Well, drunk after all the free drinks he’d been receiving all night from a mysterious benefactor. He’d be good and distracted for hours with the whores Tony had paid to keep him busy. Plenty of time for Tony to get in and out. 

The AR-Scape display filled the inner parts of his helmet, guiding his route in such a way that he could walk like he knew where he was going. Nodding at guards who greeted him along the way. He walked briskly enough to dissuade conversations. There was only so much he could bullshit. Metal boots clanking against the floor as he went, he vaguely wondered how the hell these poor guards survived in these archaic armors every day. He’d have to pitch an idea for interior coolant systems when he became a Grand Engineer. 

The Grandmaster’s Palace truly was a spire to... aspire to. It had more floors than Tony bothered to count, and the ride up the elevator to the floor he needed to reach felt like it took at least 5 minutes. He was amazed when he looked over the blueprints he’d swiped in his hack. The tower even descended deep down into the ground, technically doubling its height. It was an architectural wonder, built long before anyone Tony knew had been born. He really hoped he’d get the chance to explore the whole thing one day. 

But for now, the elevator dinged and he stepped out onto the floor, heading down the new set of hallways. He took the twists and turns like a pro thanks to his map, never faltering and looking like a lost tourist. He soon reached the door he was looking for, and swiped his (stolen) key card over the lock. The sound of mechanical gears whirred and the thick door slowly slid open, revealing an orange, glowing field past it a short way. He walked forward and stepped through it confidently, understanding, after a brief reading, that it only affected anyone wearing an obedience chip. 

The door slid closed behind him as he strode down the short walkway into the room. He stopped inside and glanced around at the lavish accommodations. It wasn’t a massive room, but it had a plush couch, fancy lighting, an ornate dining set, and a shelf of intricate bottles filled with multicolored liquids, likely alcohol. There was even a steaming tub on one wall, and the opposite had a full view of the city. It was quite evident that the Grandmaster doted on the room’s resident. The bed at the center of the far wall was massive, and looked very comfortable, covered in pillows. He almost didn’t spot the figure laying horizontally across it at first. 

But there he was, in the flesh; Loki, “God of Chaos”, reigning Grand Champion of the Contest. In all his... glory. Tony stared for a long moment, taking in the sight. 

Loki was lounging on his bed, arm hanging down, slender fingers brushing the floor, wearing nothing but an open robe and lounge trousers. His torso and feet were bare, and Tony immediately noted that he wasn’t as scrawny as he had looked from the screens; he was thin for certain, but he could see the lithe, fine muscles through that creamy skin decorated with cuts and nasty purple bruises. His ribs were taped up with bandages, and he noticed an old scar cutting down through his left eyebrow down past the eye, and another rising up from his jawline on the same side. The cuts did nothing to mar his aesthetically pleasing face, Tony couldn’t help but note. 

Loki eventually lazily turned his head to face him, revealing the thick cotton taped to the right side of his head where he had been hit last night, and fixed him with an irritated green stare. “New?” He sighed. When he opened his mouth to speak, Tony noticed that he his left canine tooth was missing, leaving a gap. “Word of advice, there’s no such thing as too much initiative around here.” 

Tony responded by silently walking over to the small table to place the tray down, boots clacking against the hard flooring. As he passed through the room, he couldn’t help but notice that the walls were decorated in a vast array of art pieces. Most of them depicting strange animals, some with realistic-looking people, and others still of alien symbols that looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t put a finger on them. 

“Planning on joining me for dinner?” Loki asked when Tony lingered for just a moment too long, sounding a bit irritable as he stared up at the ceiling. 

Tony frowned and gripped the stuffy helmet to pull it off and tuck it under his arm. He took a breath of fresh air, outside that stifling microenvironment. His head was sweaty, and he felt his hair sticking in odd directions. He really needed to get these guys better uniforms. He turned to Loki and said, “I need to ask you something.” 

“Look, friend, I’m not really in the mood to be signi- oh.” Loki had turned to look at him and, now having seen his face, blinked in confusion. “You’re that man in Salis’s box last night.” 

“You know Mr. Salis?” He asked in surprise. 

Loki moved to push himself up into a sitting position, visibly wincing and clutching his bandaged ribs as he twisted his body, and swung his legs down to the ground. “I know all of the Grandmaster’s friends, unfortunately.” He said through gritted teeth, closing his eyes and taking a pained breath, before opening them again and fixing Tony with a curious gaze. “What do you want? Can’t imagine you infiltrated the most secure building in the sector for something so trivial as betting advice.” 

“What’s Eden?” Tony got straight to the point. He didn’t want to stay here longer than he had to. He needed to get this gear back to the real guard’s duffel bag as soon as possible. 

Loki froze, looking up at Tony wide-eyed, body gone rigid. “How do you know about that...?” The fear that flashed behind his eyes was unmistakable. 

“I asked you first.” Tony said gruffly. He supposed that ruled out the idea that Loki had intentionally sent the signal to his eye. 

Loki blinked, looking unsure of himself. “I... It’s a code...” 

“Right. A code to what?” 

That fearful, distrusting look swirled in those green eyes, “Why?” 

Tony could see he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the young man looking like a cornered animal, so he sighed and stepped forward, grabbing a chair from the table and pulling it closer to Loki, and straddled it backwards, arms leaning on the back. The metal of the armor ground agains the metal of his prosthetic arm when he moved it. “Honestly? Sheer curiosity. Half my life, I’ve seen that signal ghost through my cybernetic eye now and then. The word ‘Eden’, and a weird sequence of numbers and symbols. My instruments never could record it. I thought I was going crazy til my AI confirmed my eye had received a ghost signal.” He kept his voice casual, and hoped his sincerity shone through in his expression. Loki looked him up and down, still trying to gauge what was happening. “Last night, I saw the code more clearly than I ever have before. And my sensors told me it was coming from you. I thought you’d know what it was.” 

Loki was silent for a long moment, before asking, “Are you a technomancer?” 

Tony blinked. That wasn’t a question he expected. “No, not even a little.” Everyone in Sakaar City had to go through testing for the technomancer gene. Multiple times. He’d always come through clean. 

Loki frowned, eyebrows stitched thoughtfully. He’d stuck his tongue through his toothgap as his mind processed this information. He looked more like someone trying to solve a problem than a caged animal now. 

“Why do you ask?” Tony questioned. 

“Because that signal is only detectable by technomancers.” Loki said matter-of-factly. “It’s not compatible with any artificial signal-receiving technology other than technomancer neural wavelengths.” 

Tony raised his eyebrows. “So it’s a coded message for you?” 

“Sort of. Not me, specifically. Technomancers in general, I think.” Loki was picking at his nails. “I’ve picked it up at regular intervals all my life. I call it the Eden Code.” 

“If it’s only meant for technomancers, and I don’t have an ounce of technomancer mutation in my DNA, why would I be seeing it?” Tony thought out loud. 

Loki’s tongue was in the tooth gap again as he looked up, thinking hard for a while. Seemed to be a deep-in-thought habit of his. “I recall an odd sensation, last night.” He said slowly. “I’m sensitive to any form of waves or electromagnetic pulses, and I felt like something was listening, pulling data all around me. I followed the sensation, and it seemed to be coming from you, through that window. What were you doing at that moment?” 

Tony thought back, trying to put some sense into what the raven was saying. “I was just watching? I don’t- oh.” He blinked. “Maybe you were feeling my cybernetic eye. It does a lot more than see. Its packed with the most highly advanced sensors and data-collecting functions I could fit in it. It’s constantly scanning, maybe you felt that?” 

“Likely.” 

“Do you feel it now?” 

Loki wistfully pointed to a round device embedded into the side of his neck. “They dampen my abilities when I’m not in the arena. I can’t feel anything right now.” 

“Oh.” Tony breathed. That was pretty shitty, crippling one of a person’s natural senses. Made sense, he supposed. Loki was powerful, it wouldn’t be hard to break out if he went unhindered. 

“Well, anyway.” Loki shrugged. “With instruments as seemingly sensitive as yours, it’s possible that as my mind converted the data, a few fragments bounced out and wound up in your data net.” 

“That could explain why I never saw it very strongly before. If it was bouncing off of you, the signal would have gotten weaker by the time it reached me on the other side of the city.” Tony reasoned. He shifted in his seat. “But what is it exactly? It just looks like a series of numbers to me. Does it mean something to you?” 

Loki hesitated, that distrustful look flashing through his eyes again. Tony got the sense that, whatever this code was, it was important to him. A secret to protect. Technomancers were a hunted species, so if they were communicating to each other through secret signals, it made sense that he would want to protect that. If the wrong ears heard, he could risk betraying his kind. 

“It’s... coordinates.” 

Tony blinked. He honestly hadn’t expected the young man to respond. But now he was even more intrigued. “Coordinates to what?” He asked. 

“Eden.” Loki responded. 

“Okay, what’s Eden?” 

Loki shrugged. “No idea.” 

“...what?” 

“It’s just coordinates, and the word Eden. The signal doesn’t say _what _Eden is. Only _where _it is.” 

Tony blinked. 

“Trust me, it’s been driving me crazy all my life as well.” 

“Surely you must have some guesses?” Tony leaned forward. “I mean, it’s a secret message to technomancers only, coordinates to some place called Eden. Isn’t ‘Eden’ the name of a haven in Midgardian mythos? A paradise?” 

“Far as I know.” 

“Maybe it’s a haven for technomancers.” Tony said excitedly. “A place your people can go to avoid hunters.” 

Loki had a sad look in his eyes. “That’s my hope. A place I can go to finally be free, if I ever get out of this place.” 

Tony hadn’t really thought about that, the idea that Loki might want to escape. He was the Grand Champion, had the favor of the Grandmaster, fame and glory and admiration. His room was so luxurious that Tony had forgotten it was actually a cell. But there was only so much luxury could do to make you feel better when you’re a prisoner, a slave forced to fight in a contest of gladiators. Forced to kill to survive. And this Eden? It promised Loki freedom. And it promised something Tony had never thought possible. 

“They must have some state-of-the-art tech to stay hidden for years like that, if it is a technomancer colony.” Tony thought aloud. “It’s hard to hide from the all-seeing eyes of the Grandmaster for long. And signals that only technomancers can hear? That’s some biohacking I’ve never heard of before.” Tony could feel that old bubbling of explorative thrill rise in his stomach as he rambled. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to see a place like that. The things he could learn, the new tech he could base on it. “An entire colony of technomancers must have some crazy technology. Your kind is great with that kind of thing, right? I mean, it’s in the name. I’d love to see something like that.” 

“I could get you there.” 

Tony blinked and looked up. “What do you mean?” 

“If you get me out of here, I can lead you to Eden.” Loki had a hungry look in his green eyes. 

Ah. Tony felt a weight crush down on his chest, staring at that eager expression. Loki desperately wanted to escape, that much was evident; and here Tony was presenting an opportunity. Already having infiltrated the place, he absolutely had the means to break Loki out. He had the means to ending this man’s suffering, and give him a chance at a real life. In this moment of naked need, Loki really did look rather pathetic, all bruised and bandaged like a battered doll. 

He understood that pain, gasping at a singular hope. He knew it very well. That’s why it physically hurt him to say, “I can’t do that.” 

Loki reeled back, expression immediately hardening. “Why not?” 

Tony sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, moving to stand up from the chair, pacing a bit. “Look, I... it’s not that I don’t _want _to help you out. But I’ve got a good thing going for me, business is great, I’m likely looking at a job as a Grand Engineer in a few years. I’ve never had a stable source of income like that before. I can’t risk losing all of that by letting my potential employer’s favorite... pet... out of his cage...” 

“All you have to do is use that little device you stole,” Loki gestured to the little remote controller holstered to Tony’s belt, “shut off my obedience chip. I can take care of myself with that gone.” His voice was starting to sound desperate, rising to his feet. “You don’t need to do anything else. I’ll even wait until you’ve gotten yourself out to make my escape.” 

Tony found himself backing up. “I... man, I just... I can’t...” 

Loki’s face twisted in anger, slowly advancing on him. “Why?” He demanded. “You got this far. Why is this any more of a risk?” 

Tony continued to back up. “It’s not that simple-” 

“All you have to do is drop that remote, could have been an accident-” 

“You have_ no idea _what I’ve been through to get this far in life.” Tony spat back. “I can’t take that risk just because some guy I don’t know wants to go galivanting outside his fancy cage.” 

“You fucking _coward_-” Loki’s snarl was cut short by a strangled gasp. Tony realized he’d backed up beyond the orange barrier when Loki started spasming and fell backwards on his backside. One eye squeezed shut in pain, mouth twisted in a grimace, he looked up at Tony where he stood backed against the door, staring down at him in concern. “Go away, before I call the real guards.” He growled, sounding defeated. And tired. So, very tired. 

Tony gazed down at the poor creature there on the floor for a moment, wishing he could tell him he was sorry. He did wish he could set him free. He hadn’t lied about that. But there was too much at stake. Far too much at stake. If the Grandmaster discovered his pet was gone, his specialists would go looking through their system, and they might find just enough fragments of data left by Tony’s program to implicate him. At best, he would never become a Grand Engineer. At worst, and most likely, he would face execution. Loki didn’t have to worry about execution. The Grandmaster would scold him, but he wouldn’t put down his prize dog just for misbehaving. Loki didn’t understand. He just didn’t understand. 

So Tony dipped his head and sullenly put his borrowed helmet back on before opening the sliding door and stepping out, leaving the broken man behind. 

That night, Tony lay in bed, wide awake, staring up at the ceiling. His prosthetic arm on the table beside him, resting his stub of an arm just below the elbow on his belly. It wasn’t the noisy bustling of the trashy downtown streets, his neighbor playing music too loud at 2AM, the glowing AR mewrat that had gotten through the null-zone barrier and was now hopping around his room, or the neon street lights flashing in through his window that kept him awake right now. His head was whirling with today’s events. Anxiety from all angles; hoping desperately that his infiltration of the Palace mainframe had been clean with no implications, mind rerunning through each step to ensure he didn’t forget anything. In the end, he regretted it all. It was a mistake, going there. It was so much risk just to feed his curiosity, and all he’d been left with was more questions and a strong sense of guilt about what he had done to Loki. 

“Was I wrong not to help him out?” Tony asked the dark room. 

"_Your decision was a reasonable one, sir._” JARVIS responded. “_The escape of the Grand Champion would have placed the entire city on high alert. It is unlikely you would have gone without scrutinization._” 

“I guess.” Tony frowned. “Still doesn’t feel right.” 

“_I believe that is called empathy, sir. A trait generally associated with good people._” 

Tony grinned. “Thanks, pal. What do you think about the whole Eden thing?” 

“_I think to search out a theoretical location based on the word of a man who likely regularly suffers head injuries would be a high-stakes gamble._” JARVIS did have his creator’s smart mouth. 

“You’ve got a point.” Tony sighed and turned over onto his side. He gazed out his window thoughtfully, the blazing neon lights streaming through his eyes. “But what if... what if he’s right? What if there is a colony of technomancers out there, and they’ve got crazy technology that I could learn from, that could give me an edge over all the other engineers in this city? I’d get unlimited funds in the face of that. I’d have people _ throwing _money my way. Isn’t that worth a gamble?” 

“_Perhaps, but it also has high potential __for being __a trap._” 

“If it’s a trap, it’s a trap for technomancers. I doubt they’d care about me.” 

“_That’s a risky assumption_.” JARVIS said. “_Either way, it isn’t worth the risk of breaking the Grand Champion out_.” 

“Unless I can get him to give me the coordinates without breaking him out.” It dawned on Tony. The whole idea would still be a risk, if he managed to get the converted coordinates from Loki. But a highly minimized risk if he didn’t have to worry about the Grandmaster looking for the accomplice in his Champion’s escape. 

“_And how do you intend to do that, sir?_” JARVIS sounded as irritated as an AI could. “_He did not seem overly fond of you by the end of it. I doubt he’ll just give you the location to be friendly._” 

“I dunno. Threaten him? Those obedience chips do a zappy thing, don’t they?” 

“_Torture doesn’t sound like you, master Stark._” 

“I mean, I won’t actually do it. Just threaten it a little.” 

“_This sounds like it will go over marvelously._” 

“Alright, alright. Hmmm, seduce him maybe?” 

“_I think you’d have better luck with the threatening._” 

“Oh!” Tony sat bolt upright. “I’ve got it!” He shoved his amputated arm into the prosthetic and reached up to swipe open the AR-Scape interface. He pulled down his Dark-Scape call app and typed in the name of an old friend. “Bruce is in with all the state-of-the-art drug development. I know he’s got access to some kind of truth serum.” 

“_Oh dear._” 

The line buzzed for a few long moments before it beeped and a sleepy face in the glowing blue of the interface appeared floating in the darkness before him. “Gods, Tony... this better be important at 2AM...” Bruce slurred over the call line. His curly brown hair was half stuck to his face, and he lay shirtless tucked under a comforter. His eyes were red and droopy. 

“Hey, buddy.” Tony kept his voice upbeat. “Sorry to wake you, but I need a favor.” 

“Did you already use all the detoX I gave you?” 

“I... well, yes, but that’s not why I’m calling.” 

“What’s up?” Bruce sighed. 

“What can you give me along the lines of ‘truth serum’?” 

“Truth serum?” 

“Like, if, theoretically, one needed to extract information from someone who doesn’t wanna talk. Also that someone might be kinda violent, so a sedative would be nice too.” 

“Oh gods, Tony, what did you get yourself into?” 

“Best you don’t ask. And push this as far under the table as it goes.” 

Bruce rubbed his eyes, an expression that screamed ‘I really don’t wanna deal with your bullshit right now’. “I don’t like the sound of this, but I have something that might work, depending on the species.” 

“Human?” 

“Then it should work fine.” 

“Fantastic.” Tony grinned. “I could kiss you right now.” 

“Remind me why I help you?” 

“Because I help you back.” 

“Yeah, but you don’t have a professional career at stake.” 

“Sure I do. Well, I will soon. I’m almost there, Brucie. I’m gonna be the greatest Grand Engineer there ever was.” 

“Yeah, so you always say.” Bruce yawned and laid his head back. “Stop in around back tomorrow morning, before 7AM. I’ll have it for you.” He grumbled, closing his eyes. 

“You’re beautiful.” Tony flopped onto his back. “See you in the morning.” With that, he closed the line and grinned to himself. 

“_So, let me get this straight, sir._” JARVIS spoke up. “_You’re going to drug a captive man in order to extract the coordinates of a potentially sensitive location, and if, when you get there, you discover it is indeed a __technomancer __colony, you’re going to pillage their technology for personal gain?_” 

“Well, when you put it that way.” 

“_Do you recall my saying you had the traits of a good person earlier, m__a__ster Stark?_” 

“Yeah, yeah...” Tony sighed, rolling over in his bed and curling up under the blanket, not bothering to remove his prosthetic this time. “I suck, JARVIS.” 

He gazed into the darkness of his dingy room. The cheapest of trash he could afford in his scrounging budget. He was so sick of the lizard-beetles scuttling around the water spots and the sound of his neighbors banging for hours every other night. 

“But this is a dog eat dog world. There's no rewards for being a good person on Sakaar.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry but I’m obsessed with toothgap Loki. 
> 
>   
[My Tumblr](https://morphiina.tumblr.com/)


	2. GrEZ Does It

It almost seemed suicidal, attempting the same exact heist two days in a row. No doubt the guard Tony had impersonated last night had come to work the next day after his night of drunken sex-fury, fearing repercussions for not coming into work, only to find he had apparently come into work after all. Probably had someone ask about his silt sniffles and remained wondering if he had fallen into the twilight zone for the rest of the day. But honestly, back-to-back heists were the way to do it. By the time anyone looked into the first guard’s story, Tony will have completed the second heist and be done with it. If they ramp up security after that; well, fine. He wouldn’t have to get back in later anyway. 

As he strode down the halls once again, this time wearing the uniform of a guard whose apartment he had broken into and sedated with a powerful drug that would knock him out for hours, Tony thought about how he was going to go about administering the truth serum to Loki. He had a hidden needle in the palm of his glove connected to the dosing tank, and a sound-dampening field device in case he tried to call the guards. But how would he get to that point? Offer a handshake? What if he couldn’t get near, or he was suspicious? What if it turned into a fight? He supposed he did have the remote to the obedience chip if it became necessary, but he’d rather not use that. He’d seen what those things do to people, it wasn’t pretty. 

Granted, what he was planning to do wasn’t a whole lot better than simply zapping the man. 

Tony was in the middle of running all the things he might say to Loki to avoid a struggle as he walked with the lunch tray, when he passed by a room containing a few guards chatting. 

“...news on the attempted assassination of the Grandmaster?” 

Tony halted in his tracks, startled. Attempted assassination? _What_? He backed up a bit, standing just outside the doorway out of sight, listening in. 

“Yeah, they caught the mercenary. They’ve been torturing him for info for 6 hours now. Those screams are gonna haunt me.” 

“You’ve heard worse around here.” 

“Yeah, there’s a lot of sounds that haunt me.” 

“Anyway, so did they get anything out of him?” 

“Yeah, like half an hour ago they finally broke him. Got the name of his benefactor.” 

“And?” 

“Some guy named... Stark?” 

Tony stiffened like he’d been shocked. 

“Stark?” 

“Yeah, Tony Stark.” 

Tony’s blood ran cold. 

“Some engineer I guess, his insignia’s on the gun the mercenary tried to smoke the Grandmaster with.” 

“What kind of dumbass puts his name on a gun he’s tryna kill someone with?” 

“JARVIS.” Tony whispered in a panic. “What the fuck is... what the fuck...?” 

“_It appears that you have been framed, sir._” Came the calm reply. 

It took all of Tony’s strength not to slide down onto the floor, knees weak. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, making him feel light headed. This wasn’t happening. _This wasn’t happening._

“Salis.” Tony pressed his hand to his stolen helmet, pacing in his panic. “Salis did this.” 

“Y_ou are most likely correct, sir._” JARVIS responded. “_I believe Mr. __Salis__ purchased the gun from you to use in an attempt on the Grandmaster’s life, and in case of failure, he misled the assassin to implicate you rather than himself. Let the loose ends clean themselves up._” 

The guards in the room were still talking, “They just put out a warrant for his arrest. Guess we’ll be watching an execution tonight.” They laughed. 

“Oh gods, oh gods, oh fucking _gods_...” Tony started walking down the hall in his dazed panic attack. His entire body was shaking so hard he feared he might drop the food tray. “JARVIS, activate self-destruct on any sensitive equipment at the apartment.” 

“_Done, sir._” 

“What the _fuck _do I do, JARVIS?” 

“_The Grandmaster is not known for fair trial, sir. I’m afraid your only choice is to run, and run far._” 

Tony trembled like a tiny dog soaked by a garden hose, cybernetic heart pumping so hard he worried it might short-circuit, felt like he was going to pass out. He couldn’t think straight. The only thing on his mind was JARVIS’s words. _Run. Run far. _

But how? Where could he go that the Grandmaster wouldn’t find him? Where on the entire bloody planet did the Grandmaster’s reach did not extend? 

That’s when an idea sparked in his mind. 

“Eden.” He said. “I need to get to Eden.” 

“_Although I estimate the chances of this ‘Eden’ truly being a safe place to be less than 10%, I’m afraid I must agree with you, sir. It is a chance you will have to take._” 

“Loki. I need him to take me to Eden.” And so, though his mind had the floor pulled out from under him, and he was swimming through the darkness, he’d found something to cling to. To keep himself from completely having a meltdown. He had something to focus on. A goal. A determination. So he strode down that hallway, this one thing on his mind. 

Eden. 

Tony walked as briskly as he could without looking suspicious, doing his best to nod in greeting at guards along the way. He tried not to think about the fact that if any of these men lifted his helmet, he’d be a dead man. 

When he reached the door he was looking for, he shakily held his arm out to swipe the pass. The door slowly slid open, and he stepped inside, quickly shutting it behind him. He stood there and breathed for a long moment, trying to relax, keep his mind focus, keep from slipping. When he finally felt ready, he walked forward through the orange barrier and into the room. 

He found Loki lying back on the plush couch, eyes closed. He looked to be in his combat uniform, sans armor plating. Still had that patch over his temple where The Whale had hit him the night before. His dented, broken, horned circlet sat on the side table near his head. He had dark circles under his eyes, and looked pretty beat up. Had he just come back from a fight? Or training? 

Tony ripped off his helmet and tucked it under his arm. “Uhh, knock knock?” 

Loki slowly turned his head, eyes still closed, as though being roused from a dream, grumbling, “What.” 

Tony strode over to him, tossing the food plate onto the table haphazardly as he went with a loud clack. “Hey, I need you to get up, like right now.” 

Those green eyes fluttered open and Tony was fixed with a dazed, quizzical expression for a long moment before realization seemed to set in, and he whipped upwards into a sitting position, wincing and placing a hand on his ribs. “_You_.” He hissed, instantly hostile. 

Tony held a hand up, “Relax, I changed my mind.” 

“About _what_?” He spat. 

“Helping you escape.” 

Loki’s face immediately went from angry to innocently surprised. “You... what?” 

“Yeah, I felt bad, so I made up my mind, and came back to bust you out of here.” Tony didn’t know why he was lying. He was so hyped up on adrenaline, his brain was barely functioning. This felt like the safe thing to say. The thing to say that would get Loki to trust him quickest. He needed Loki on his side, pronto. “Sorry I didn’t do it yesterday. But we need to go, like, _right now_.” 

Loki was sore as hell, his ribs on fire, and oh man was this a bad time; but he wasted no time in pushing himself off the couch and to his feet, immediately grabbing his golden circlet and hanging it securely around his neck with a light golden chain clipped to each end. Strange thing to choose as your one item to take with you on the run, Tony couldn’t help but think. “Ready. Switch off my chip.” Loki said. 

Oh right, the chip. Tony reached down and grabbed the remote, but hesitated for a moment. “Can I trust you won’t just fry me the second I turn this off?” 

“Why would I do that?” 

“I don’t know, it’s not like we’re friends.” 

“I mean, there’s nothing I can say to convince you I won’t, but I will say that our odds of making it out of here increase tenfold if I have my powers.” 

“Ah, yeah. Good point.” Well, it wasn’t like Tony had a lot of options right now. “One sec.” He glanced down at the remote. There were two buttons, a dial, and no labels. So Tony pressed one of the buttons and hoped for the best. 

Nope. Wrong one. Loki jolted in shock and grabbed his neck, gasping in pain, body spasming, nearly falling over. 

“Oh shit, sorry.” He hit that button again and Loki breathed out in relief, eyes wide and panting. 

“O-other one.” Loki said shakily. 

Tony grimaced in sympathy, and hit the other button. This time, the device whirred and the little light switched off, releasing its little teeth. Loki grabbed it and ripped it off, tossing it on the floor and backing away from it like it was some sort of alien parasite. He glared at it in triumph, little streams of blood oozing from the tiny punctures in his neck where the skin had grown around the device. 

“Alright, so... you got a hood or anything? How do we keep the other guards from seeing you?” Tony asked. “Guess I could give you this uniform and you can pretend I’m a prisoner...” 

Loki had his head back, eyes closed. He looked so much more relaxed than Tony had seen him yet. Like he was soaking in sunlight. Basking in the relief from the obedience chip finally being gone, his technomancer senses returning like a splash of cool water. After a moment, he opened his eyes again and glanced at Tony. “Not really necessary. If we run into anyone and they ask, just tell them the Grandmaster told you to bring me to his bedroom.” 

Tony raised his eyebrows and blinked. “Is... is that a thing that... happens?” 

Loki fixed him with a look before turning and heading towards the door, clearly having no intention of answering that. Tony followed, pulling his helmet back on, and the pair of them stepped past the orange barrier together. He swiped the door with the key card, and it slid open. Loki breathed in and popped his collar to hide the fact that his obedience chip was missing, and the two stepped out into the hallway. Tony felt his cybernetic heart pumping as he went. He felt so exposed. Too exposed, with Loki next to him. Melting into crowds invisibly was more his thing. Everyone would be looking at him with Loki at his side. All they would have to do is peek under his helmet... 

Thankfully, this top floor was rather empty at the moment, and other than a janitor glancing up briefly, they didn’t run into anyone for a while. Down these garish, two-colored halls in blue and green. He was too nervous to think about what these colors might mean. 

Suddenly, he heard a sharp noise, and glanced over to find Loki slapping himself in the face, and rubbing his eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Tony asked, quizzically. 

“Trying to sober up so I can use my powers.” 

“You’re _drunk _at 2 in the afternoon?” 

“High.” 

“...you’re _high _at 2 in the afternoon?” 

Loki shrugged. “Not much else to do in that cell but get high and wait for the day to go by.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, scrunching his face as he walked. “Fucks with my technomancy, though.” He sniffed. Now Tony could see it. The blown pupils and the red around the eyes. The slight jerking in his step, slower response time. 

“Great.” Tony grumbled. That’s just what he needed. A junkie's got his back in the most high security building in the sector. 

To make matters worse, when they turned a corner, they ran straight into a pair of guards, lighting Tony’s nerves on fire. 

“Where are you going with the Grand Champion?” One of them asked, nodding at Loki. He didn’t sound overly suspicious, at least. 

“The uh, Grandmaster requested his presence in his... bedroom.” Tony tried not to sound uncomfortable. 

The other guard groaned, “_Again_?” 

“Well, he did just narrowly escape an assassination.” The first one shrugged. “Stress relief?” 

“When have you _ever _seen the Grandmaster stressed? Guy’s the _god _of calm and collected.” 

“If uh, if you’ll excuse us, gentlemen.” Tony prodded. He desperately wanted to get out of here before his anxiety burst open like a bloated carcass. 

“Ah, yes.” The two guards parted, allowing Tony and Loki to continue past them. Tony breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Told you it’d be fine.” Loki said casually. 

All Tony had was questions towards that, but now wasn’t the time for it. 

The pair reached the end of the hallway, and stepped into the empty elevator to begin descending. Tony knew the Grandmaster’s penthouse was at the top of the tower, how was he going to explain traveling _down _with the Grand Champion? _Oops, wrong button. I seem to be hitting all the wrong buttons today_, he thought through what he might say. 

Seems it wouldn’t matter, anyway, because all of a sudden, the building went to red alert. 

Red lights flashing, sirens blaring, Tony was shocked out of his skin. A voice came out the intercom, “_Alert! Grand Champion roaming the facility with no obedience chip! Uniformed guard an accomplice! Find them! This is not a drill!_” Oh, shit. Tony felt the cold sweat drip down, stomach falling. Someone had found the obedience chip cast aside in Loki’s cell. Probably that damn janitor. They should have hidden it somewhere. Stupid, _ stupid _rookie move. 

“That’s not good.” Loki said calmly, not an ounce of concern detectable. Tony wished he had whatever he’d shot up with. 

“You think?!” Tony spat. He ripped off his helmet and began tearing off the layers of the guard uniform, tossing the pieces into the elevator, struggling a bit to pull the gauntlet off his prosthetic. No need for all of it anymore. Anyone saw a guard with the Grand Champion now, they were shooting at him. Best he make himself as nimble as possible, outside that heavy, stifling armor. Underneath, he had on a shield vest under his T-shirt and heavy pants. Those would have to suffice. He pulled up his bandana to hide his face, then reached out and told the elevator to stop on the next floor. The guards would be expecting them to come out at the bottom floor, so he quickly made the decision that they would need to find another way down. 

When the elevator hissed to a stop, he clicked the ammo cartridge on his stolen guard’s gun and held it up as the door opened. He relaxed when he realized no one was waiting behind it. The pair stepped out, and Tony reached in to command the elevator to continue descending with the discarded guard’s armor, informing it to make several stops along the way. Throw off the guards best he could, if they didn’t know which floor they had gotten off. 

“_There’s an emergency staircase at the end of this floor._” JARVIS said through Tony’s earpiece. “_But many guards’ barracks along the way. I suggest you continue through the ventilation system._” 

Tony nodded, holstered his gun and started heading towards one of the big wall grates, Loki following with a quizzical, bleary expression. “We’re not just gonna shoot our way through?” 

“Not if I can help it.” Tony grumbled as he removed the plate from the wall, and stepped back. “After you.” 

Loki blinked at him before seeming to relent to Tony’s plan, stepping forward and crouching down to crawl into the vent, wincing as his ribs complained against the movement, his head pounding. _Hold out a bit_, Loki thought to his sore body, _just wait _ _ til __we’re out of here and then I’ll baby you_. Tony waited until Loki was well inside before following after him, pulling the vent grate closed behind him. 

“Hold on one sec.” Tony told him as they crawled on all fours inside the tight, dark space, and reached down to hit a device on his belt. A red field immediately burst from it, surrounding them in a bubble and then disappearing. 

“What was that?” Loki asked, glancing back at him. “It felt... strange.” 

“Sound dampening. No one will hear us outside the bubble. Won’t hear our boots clanking against the metal.” Tony explained. “Let’s go.” 

Loki nodded, turned his head and began crawling forward through the vent as it slanted upwards, Tony right behind him, prosthetic clacking against the metal of the ventilation shaft. As he crawled a ways, a certain dumb part of his brain couldn’t help but note how nice of an ass Loki had, being the only thing in his line of vision at the moment; but he internally slapped himself, because _now was not the fucking time_. 

The pair of them crawled through the darkness for what felt like an eternity, and Tony’s joints were starting to ache. He was a young man at 25, fit and regularly had to twist his body around to scavenge for materials out in the trash wastes; but this was _not _a comfortable position to move in, metal hard under his knees. The walls so were close around him, and he was starting to feel claustrophobic. JARVIS must have detected his rising heart rate, because he said comfortingly , “_Almost there, sir._” 

Listening to Loki’s relaxed breathing helped too. 

As they passed carefully over one of the vents that opened out into a hall, Tony paused when he heard the voices of guards as they jogged down. “Still no sign?” 

“They found a guard uniform in the elevator, but no idea where they got off.” Came the gruff reply. 

“Fuck. The Grandmaster’s gonna melt stick us all if we lose his favorite slave.” 

The sound of a voice came over a radio, “_Reminder, target is to be caught _**_alive_**_, but watch your guard; target is _**_extremely _**_dangerous._” 

“How the hell are we supposed to catch him even if we do find him? Did you see what he did to The Whale?” 

“Swarm him I guess.” 

The guard groaned. “We’re all gonna die.” 

As the sound of their footsteps disappeared, Tony spoke up, “Are you really _that_ dangerous?” 

“I’m the _dangerousest_.” Came Loki’s somewhat slurred response. 

“Yeah, okay.” Tony grumbled. Not like this he wasn’t. 

“_You should exit the vents here, sir_.” Came JARVIS. 

“You see a vent coming up?” Tony asked Loki. “It’s time to make our exit.” 

Loki glanced down, crawling a short ways forward before coming to a stop and feeling at the grate under him. “How?” 

“Should be an access latch?” 

Loki fumbled around with it in the darkness for a long moment before grumbling, “My fine motor skills are fucked right now. What a day to go with GrEZ as my drug of choice.” 

“Jesus.” Tony invoked the name of a forgotten deity carried here by the original Midgardians who fell to Sakaar, a name now only used as a curse for emphasis. “You’re shooting up GrEZ _midday _this casual?” 

“I’ve been pretty fucked up since last night, if we’re being honest. Kinda needed it.” 

“Ah, right.” Tony couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt at that. It was his fault, after all. Giving him that glimmer of hope, just to snatch it away. He was probably so rattled, going back to fighting after the idea that he might not have to ever again sank into his mind. Tony would probably pick something strong like GrEZ too. The escapism relief that came from sending your mind off to another dimension was something he understood all too well. “Scooch over a bit.” Loki complied and Tony pressed in, their shoulders brushing as he went for the latch. He found it quickly with his nimble fingers accustomed to searching out small things in the darkness, and pulled at it. 

And, that was a really dumb mistake. 

The vent popped out from under the pair of them, and they both dropped in dead weight from the ceiling with a yelp of surprise. They landed with a sickening thud and a sharp jolt of pain bursting from their bones, the sound of their bodies hitting the ground echoing down the hall. They lay there for a moment, until Tony groaned in pain and pushed himself up a little, blinking through his ringing ears and blurry vision. He glanced down and realized he was laying on Loki, who was staring up at the ceiling with a shocked look in his eyes. 

“Fucking... oowww...” Tony’s face was scrunched in pain, the world spinning as he reached up and pressed his hand to his own temple. “That _ hurt _.” 

Loki was biting his lip, eyes watering. He looked like he was trying really hard to keep in a scream. 

“You alright?” 

“_Nope_.” Loki whispered, his voice strained. “Please get off _ . _” 

“Ah, right.” Tony struggled to push himself off, scrambling back before grabbing at the wall to pull himself to his feet, adjusting his bandana over his nose to ensure it was secure. “I think your tiara got my collarbone.” He winced, pressing on the area in question. That was going to be a nasty bruise. At least it wasn’t bleeding. 

“I think your entire body got my entire body.” Loki groaned. “And it’s a circlet.” 

“Anything broken?” 

“My trust in you.” 

“Yeah, well, get over it. We’re not out of the fungal forest yet.” Tony reached down and grabbed Loki by the arm, helping him to sit up, which he did with a face contorted in pain. He helped pull him to his feet, and propped him up when he staggered. They really didn’t have time to sit around here. “JARVIS, give me a path.” 

“_Done, sir._” A blue AR line ran along the floor, and Tony started after it, pulling Loki along. 

“Who’s JARVIS?” Loki asked, trying to rub the throbbing pain out of his neck with one hand, clutching his ribs with the other. 

“My AI assistant- oh _shit!_” Tony pushed Loki past the wall just as a laser fizzled past their heads, and leapt after him. They both pressed against the wall as the shouting of guards came down the hallway, and Tony pulled out his gun. He scoped around the corner via the echolocative sensors in his eye, and cursed when he saw a group of at least 5 guards running down the hall towards them. He stuck his gun around the corner and started shooting back to slow them down, hearing angry yelling and more laser shots in response. 

Tony glanced over at Loki for a second and found him staring at his hands, which had little sparks coming from them, fizzling out the second they arced. “Fucking...” Loki sighed frustratedly. 

“It’s fine, I got it.” Tony said. “JARVIS, activate advanced targeting mode.” 

“_Activated_.” 

Tony could now see the world as a 3-dimensional grid, the location of the guards, and the exact direction he needed to aim his gun to fire off lethal shots at each man. He didn’t waste time. He leapt out and fired off his laser gun as he went, his prosthetic as his precision gun arm, following the guidelines set by JARVIS as he flew through the air as if in slow motion. Before the guards knew what hit them, they were down, smoking holes through their chests, bodies collapsing to the ground. Tony landed on his shoulder and rolled with it, launching himself into a crouch before looking around wildly to ensure no one else was coming. The hallway was quiet, other than the quiet fizzle of the laser smoke coming from the dead guards. Seeing the coast was clear, Tony got to his feet and gestured to Loki to follow him. 

Loki was still glaring at his hands though, so Tony got his attention with a ‘psst’ noise, which admittedly was rather muffled through the bandana. Audible enough it seems, though, since Loki finally looked up, blinked, and walked over to him. Tony turned and they headed down the hallway, cautiously but quickly. As they came up to the dead guards, Tony knelt down and grabbed one of the discarded laser guns, tossing it to Loki, who caught it with a look of surprise. 

“You know how to use that?” Tony asked. 

“No.” Loki answered honestly. 

“Oh, uh... here.” Tony gestured to the parts of the gun. “I know there’s a lot of buttons, but we’re not tryna get fancy right now, so ignore those. All you need to know is that this is the safety, and this is the trigger. Trigger won’t work with the safety engaged, but have the safety engaged when you’re not shooting. Don’t need you shooting your foot off.” 

“That would be unfortunate.” 

“When you’re trying to run from the law, generally two feet _ are _preferred.” 

“Unless you’re a species with more than two feet naturally. Then you probably want more than two feet. You probably want your natural number of-” 

“Alright, I need you to focus here.” 

“Right, right.” 

“Cool, lets go.” 

The pair continued down the hallway, checking corridors as they went. Though Loki was completely lax as he strode high as a kite down the hall with those long, slender legs, Tony was on edge. He knew that once those dead guards failed to report back, others would come looking. They needed to get out of here before they could catch their trail. He glanced at the digital map he had uploaded of the palace and their current location, quietly muttering under his breath ‘who the hell needs this many corridors?’. Honestly though, some of these halls didn’t even seem to go _ anywhere _. To Tony’s relief, though, they seemed to be nearing the emergency stairs that JARVIS had mentioned earlier. 

As they turned a corner, however, JARVIS suddenly spoke up, “_Sir, multiple heat signatures approaching!_” 

“Fuck!” Tony pushed Loki into another hallway just as guards began flooding up the stairs. “Get your gun ready!” 

“Right. Which one was the safety again?” 

Tony groaned, realizing he’d made a mistake giving Loki a weapon. He was far more likely to accidentally shoot himself than any of the guards at this rate. “JARVIS?” 

“_Best stay behind cover, sir. Far too many to cover in a single move._” 

Tony didn’t waste any time. He popped out from behind the wall, making a mad dash and got a few shots off before diving behind the opposite hallway wall, across from where Loki still stood. From his digital display, he found that most of his shots had met their marks, and several guards had dropped. The angry shouting and return fire confirmed it, as the rest of the guards took shelter behind their own walls. Still far too many. 

“Give us back the Champion and we’ll let you go!” One of the guardsmen shouted. 

Tony laughed at that, and rather than responding, stuck his arm around the wall and fired off several more shots. More angry shouting ensued, and he could plainly hear them giving each other orders to regroup. They didn’t seem very coordinated. Did the Grandmaster just put anyone in a suit of armor and stick them in the hallways? He supposed there _ were _far too many hallways needing guarding to get picky about who you hire. 

He suddenly heard laser fire and cursing, and glanced over to see Loki attempting to also shoot suppression fire. It was truly an impressive sight. Tony had never seen anything like it. He had somehow managed to miss every single attempted shot by a wide arc. 

“Stay still!” Loki growled, closing one eye and attempting to hit one specific guard. “And stop turning invisible!” 

Tony stared at him in amazement. “Man, I woulda brought detoX if I’d have known you were gonna be _ this _useless.” 

A laser blast whizzed past Loki’s face and he reeled back. 

“Why don’t you just sit tight and I’ll handle this?” Tony reached down to his belt and pulled off a tiny, blue orb. He squeezed it and it made a cracking sound, waited a few seconds, and then tossed it down the hall with all his might. 

The guards stared down at the tiny ball whirling towards them in confusion, and only realized they should have been running when it was too late. 

All of a sudden, the ball burst open in a massive, squishy explosion as blue gunk splattered everywhere, all over the guards. The shouting began when the goo instantly began to expand, enveloping them. They all tried to get away, fearfully yelling as they found themselves unable to move, the blue substance hardening to a crystalline form, rendering them all immobile. 

Loki stared. “Why didn’t we start with that?” 

Tony stepped out from behind the wall, grabbing Loki by the sleeve and dragging him along. “Because I only have one.” He explained. It had been a gamble, using his trump card now. He hoped he wouldn’t regret it later. 

“Well that’s a plot inconvenience if I ever heard one.” Loki sighed. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” 

They passed by the frozen guards, some of them crying out for help. Once the others found them, it would take hours to chip them all out. All in all, it was a rather more humane method of incapacitating enemies. Well... for the ones lucky enough not to have been hit in the face and suffocated as a result. That wasn’t the most comfortable way to go. The pair reached the staircase, stomping down as quickly as they could without tripping, grabbing the rungs to swing themselves around the corners. He was surprised Loki was keeping up without managing to fall down the stairs. Maybe the side effects of the drug were finally wearing off, or maybe the adrenaline was pushing him forward. 

“T_his next floor, sir._” JARVIS spoke up. “_There is a street exit here._” 

“Get ready.” Tony said gruffly, grabbing his pistol. “They’re going to be swarming this floor.” 

And he was right about that. The second they stepped out into the hall, the shooting began. Smaller clusters of guards trying to rush them, Tony hitting them faster than they could react with the targeting mode of his cybernetic eye combined with the inhumanly fast reflexes of his mechanical prosthetic arm. The halls were a colorful blur, lighting up with laser fire as they ran. Loki actually managed to hit one that popped up out of nowhere, and he pumped his fist with victory. Tony didn’t have the heart to mention that it was ‘just a lucky shot’. 

Suddenly, as they were running past a doorway, Loki skid to a stop and backed up. 

Tony grabbed the wall to stop himself and turned back, hissing, “What the hell are you doing? We need to move!” 

“This is where they keep my daggers!” Loki said excitedly. 

“Your da-... we don’t have time...!” 

But Loki had already gone in. Tony groaned and ran back to the door, standing outside of it with his pistol in hand and senses on red alert. He expected to be swarmed by more guards than he could handle at any moment. Felt the panic rising in his throat. 

However, he breathed a sigh of relief when, moments later, Loki stepped back out of the room, holster belts around his waist, dagger hilts in his hands. He breezed past Tony and started off down the hall, and Tony ripped after him. 

“You know those aren’t gonna do shit in a firefight?” Tony reminded him. 

“You don’t know what I can do.” Loki responded. 

“I’ve seen what you can do, that other guy didn’t have a _gun_.” 

“Neither did I.” 

“...your point?” That statement had no relevance. 

“Never mind, I don’t know what I’m saying right now.” Loki grumbled, seemingly annoyed with himself. 

“Gods, we are screwed.” Tony groaned, feeling his life slipping away from him. 

“Less talking, more walking... you.” 

“It’s Tony. Tony Stark.” 

“Nice to meet you, Tony Stark. I’m Loki.” 

“Yes, I know you’re Lo_oo__h __shit_.” 

Tony skid to a stop, grabbing Loki by the shirt to stop him as well. At the end of the hallway, a blockade of countless guards stood filling between the walls, guns trained on the pair of them. There were no doors or abutting hallways to duck behind this time. Just a long path to certain death. Tony quickly turned, but realized more were flooding in behind them. No way back. No way forward. Just a whole lot of guns and nothing to stop them hitting them. Nothing to hide behind. Exposed at all angles. 

“Drop your weapons!” One of the guards yelled. 

Tony’s stomach dropped, and his veins filled with despair when he realized they were well and truly surrounded. There was no way out of this one. He wouldn’t have had a chance even if he hadn’t thrown his only goo grenade. He felt the panic fill him, the adrenaline rush, and fall with the realization that he was going to die, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. That soul-wrenching feeling deep in his gut. 

He was about to say something along the lines of ‘nice knowing you’, when suddenly a strange static sound began to fill the air, and the smell of ozone hit his nostrils. He glanced over at Loki in surprise to find his green eyes crackling with energy, arms slowly raising, little strands of electricity bursting across his forearms and disappearing. It crossed Tony’s mind that the effects of the drug must have worn off enough for Loki to have gotten his powers back under control. The lights began to flicker, and all of the guards suddenly began to look fearful, crying out and shouting, warning Loki to stop, raising their guns to fire. 

“Loki...!” Tony shouted over the increasingly loud zapping and guards yelling. They were about to fire, Tony squeezed his eyes shut. 

That was when the sounds of small explosions began filling the air like crackling fireworks, and he quickly realized that the burn of the lasers never met his body. Tony opened his eyes to see all of the guards’ guns bursting in their hands, sizzling as the electrical components were fries, and most threw them to get away from the heat, startled. 

Loki stepped forward, purple corona flaring up around him. His face determined, fists clenched as he drew power to himself. Tony found himself backing up and away from him, struck with terror, fight or flight telling him he was in immediate danger. Electricity was surging from Loki’s hands now, and many of the guards were abandoning their post, running and yelling in terror. 

But it was too late. 

Loki roared and a burst of energy exploded out from him, enveloping everything in a wave. Cybernetics were frying and bursting, metal armor conducting the electricity, guards screaming in agony as they were electrified like flies in a bug zapper. And like flies they dropped, landing in heaps around them. Dead, sizzling. The acrid smell of burning flesh and ozone thick in the air. 

Tony realized he’d fallen to his ass in the burst of mayhem, bandana blown from his face, blinking in shock. He looked down at himself, flexing his prosthetic fingers, realizing that he hadn’t been touched by the electricity. Had Loki avoided him intentionally with his electrical blast? Or had he just been lucky? He fell backwards, spread eagle on the ground, breathing out the stress with extreme relief. 

He was alive. He was alright. The guards were dead. They were safe. 

Loki appeared, standing over him. His short, messy hair was standing on end from the static charge. He looked rather silly. 

“What are you lying around for, Tony Stark?” He asked, grin showing off that toothgap of his. “We’re not out of the fungal forest yet.” He held out a hand, and Tony smirked back and took it, allowing himself to be hauled to his feet. 

Together, they ran, stepping over sizzling bodies as they travelled to the entrance area. Loki grabbed a green cloak with two solid gold lines running down it from the employee coat rack and swung it over his shoulders, pulling the hood up over his head. The receptionist, probably the owner of the cloak, cowered behind the desk, making no attempt to stop them. Loki waved a hand and the electronic lock on the large doors clicked open with a zapping noise, allowing them to push open the doors without skipping a beat. 

Outside, Sakaar City was bustling with activity, even in this higher-end area. Cars whirring past, the sky rails hissing overhead. No one seemed to notice two frazzled renegades as they exited the Palace doors. Outside those walls, it was business as usual. No one had any idea of the amount of firefight, death and destruction that had occurred within. 

The afternoon sun was bright, and Loki squinted a bit. It had been such an unthinkably long time since the unfiltered rays had touched his face. He couldn’t help but close his eyes and drink it in for a moment, feeling clearer than he had in longer than he could remember. 

“Hey, no time for napping.” Tony touched his arm and walked past him, heading towards the steps. Loki opened his eyes, nodded and followed behind him. There was no time for hesitation or lollygagging. They wouldn’t be safe until they were well out of Sakaar City. And even then, safety was relative. 

The pair of them headed down the street, Tony leading the way, trying to blend into the crowd. A bit difficult when everyone was posh and you looked like you just came from a gladiator match. Which, Tony supposed, was exactly what Loki did. At least his head was covered by that hood. No doubt someone would recognize one of the most famous faces in the city. If one person recognized him, they would likely have a horde of fans swarming them, doing the Grandmaster’s agents job for them without even realizing it. 

They strode briskly through the square, heading towards the downtown area. That would be an easier place to blend in, Tony knew. More crowds, wearing ratty outfits like Tony’s. They almost made it to the outskirts when Tony happened to glance over and spot Sakaaran street officers running down the street towards them. 

“Oh shit, run!” Tony yelped, grabbing Loki by the sleeve and making a mad dash down the road. Loki picked up the pace immediately, and they shot down the sidewalks together, blowing past pedestrians who responded with angry shouts, the cops in hot pursuit. They ran through an AR-Scape avatar, disrupting the flow of data and causing it to temporarily burst into point cloud data before reassembling back to its original form. 

“_I’m detecting more o__fficers __heading for you on the adjacent roads, sir._” Came JARVIS. “_I recommend taking the next right._” 

“Got it.” Tony cut off to the smaller street going right, Loki on his heels. He knew exactly where JARVIS was taking him. He’d been down this road countless times. Most of them stumbling drunk. 

“We’re losing them!” Loki said, out of breath. 

“This way.” Tony said, shoving his way through a crowd of people, heading towards that shop logo in the shape of a laser rifle in purple, the light in the R gone out long ago; he knew it by heart. Loki was right behind him, leaving annoyed pedestrians in their path. 

“Where are we-?” 

“Just trust me!” 

Tony burst into the empty weapons shop through the doors, surprising the keeper behind the counter. 

The man had a shocked expression on his face, “Tony...?” 

“Move, Rhodey! Move, _ move _!!” Tony yelled, high on adrenaline, running through the store. He took a flying leap over the counter, Rhodey pulling aside just in time, landing in a crouch and throwing himself against the back panel. Loki slid under the counter walkway and scrambled into position beside Tony, panting and pressing a hand to his ribs, face pained. The counter was glass on the front, holding the weaponry that Rhodey sold for display, but the backside was solid and opaque. They would be hidden from view back here. 

“What the _fuck_, Tony?” Rhodey yelled. “You just gave me a heart attack! Who the hell is-?” 

“Shh, shh!” 

Suddenly, someone burst into the shop. The sound of metal boots stomped in, as the officer strode over to Rhodey. “You! Did you see two men run past here?” 

Rhodey blinked, seeming to be processing the situation. “I think so, sir. Two men, one in a green cloak?” 

Loki shot Tony a panicked look from where they huddled behind the counter. Tony gave him a reassuring pat on the hand. He knew Rhodey wouldn’t sell them out. 

“That’s them. Where did they go?” The officer demanded. 

“Saw them running down to the left, sir.” Rhodey said calmly. “Looked like they were in quite a hurry. Some kinda trouble?” 

But the officer was already turning away, making a dash for the door, ignoring Rhodey’s question in favor of catching up to the renegades. 

Both Tony and Loki let out a breath of relief as the cop disappeared, and Rhodey looked down at them questioningly. “What the _hell _did you get yourself into this time, Tony?” 

“One sec.” Tony panted. “Let me catch my breath.” 

Rhodey groaned, and opened up his AR-Scape interface. He swiped his hand over it, and the shop windows darkened, the word ‘closed’ lighting up neon and the door locking. “I swear to the gods, Tony, bringing _cops _into my shop?” 

“I’m sorry, man. Didn’t really have any other options at the moment.” Tony pushed himself up to his feet, and glanced down at Loki. “Stay here a sec, alright?” 

Loki nodded, letting his legs stretch out underneath him from where he sat on the ground, relaxing back to give his poor abused body a break. Satisfied with that, Tony walked over to Rhodey, took him by the arm and pulled him into the backroom, out of earshot. 

“What the _hell _is going on, Tony?” Rhodey asked, brown eyes full of concern for his friend. 

“Listen, Rhodey, I...” Tony rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke quietly so Loki couldn’t hear him. “I’m in deep shit, man. _Deep _shit. Like, get the fuck out of town kind of shit. I’m gonna be gone for a very long time... hell, probably forever, if we’re being honest.” 

Rhodey raised his eyebrows in alarm. 

“Until the Grandmaster dies,” Tony continued, “if he ever does... you’re probably not gonna see me again.” 

“The hell did you do? Steal his favorite concubine?” Rhodey asked incredulously, gesturing to Loki through the doorway. Tony glanced at the young man, who was currently, concerningly, peering curiously into the barrel of a gun. 

“Please tell me that’s not loaded.” Tony groaned. Seems Loki wasn’t as clear as he thought he was. 

“Well... the safety’s on.” Rhodey blinked. “Wait a sec...” He squinted, scrutinizing the man. “Is that...?” 

“Yeah. Loki. The Grand Champion of the Arena.” 

“Hooooly _shit_, Tony...!” 

“I know, I know.” 

“Why the hell you gone stealing the _Grand Champion_-!” 

“I didn’t _want _to.” Tony whispered. “Keep this quiet, he doesn’t know, but I only busted him out because the Grandmaster was already gonna kill me... this kid knows a place I can go to be safe from him.” A partial lie. He had no idea if Eden was actually a safe place. But he didn’t need Rhodey worrying more than he was going to already. “If you hear anything, by the way, I didn’t do it. I got set up.” 

“Where the hell is safe from the _Grandmaster_?” Rhodey had his hands clasped behind back of his neck, pacing, clearing very agitated by all of this. 

“Listen, bud. I really don’t have time to explain, so you just gotta trust me. Someone had to have seen us run in here, the cops will be backtracking.” Tony sighed. “We need to get down in the tunnels before we get you in trouble too.” 

“Tony...” 

“I’m sorry, Rhodey.” Tony said softly, placing his hands on his friend’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I... this is goodbye, man. I wish we could make it last, but... this is the last time you’re gonna be seeing me.” 

Rhodey gazed into his eyes, sadder than he’d ever seen him, placing his hands on Tony’s forearms. “Jesus, man, I...” He swallowed. “I don’t wanna see you go, but... I’d rather see you gone than watch your execution on the holo. I... Jesus, Tony...” His voice choked up, and he pulled Tony into an embrace. 

They hugged tight, and Tony felt tears spring to his eyes. He felt like he was in a dream... or a nightmare. He couldn’t fathom never seeing his best friend again. He couldn’t really wrap his head around _ any _of this, honestly. This was insane... 

Rhodey sniffed and pulled back, patting Tony on the arm. “I’ll give you some equipment to take with you, alright?” 

“That’d be great, bud.” 

“Anything I can do. You just tell me now, okay?” 

“Loki?” Tony called, and the young raven-haired man glanced up. Tony jerked his head in an indication that he should follow, so Loki set the gun down and got to his feet, cloak billowing around him as he walked into the backroom to join them. 

Rhodey took them into the armory safe room, unlocking it and allowing Tony to browse. “Take anything, except Vera.” 

“Is that the thing that fell through the portal and nearly killed you?” 

“Like an angel from heaven.” 

“The hell you call it ‘Vera’?” 

“I don’t know, it was written on the barrel. Somebody loved that gun.” 

“Alright, I won’t take Vera, but can I have this bazooka?” 

“I mean, yeah, but you really think you can drag that thing on the run?” 

“Damn, good point.” Tony sighed. Lifelong dream crushed. 

In the end, he settled on a rifle, a shotgun, a pair of handguns, a couple of extra shield vests, and replacement ammo cartridges. Most laser guns ran on solar power, storing the energy they gathered in the gel cartridge, but didn’t hurt to grab extra. He stuffed everything he could into his backpack, then swung the rifle over his shoulder, handing the shotgun to Loki. “Don’t play with that.” He warned. 

Loki rolled his eyes, took the gun and swung it over his back as well. 

“Ya’ll ready?” Rhodey asked. 

“Ready.” Tony confirmed, taking a deep breath and looking around the place one last time. 

Rhodey gazed at him sadly before turning and walking towards the back wall. He flicked his wrist and suddenly the wall shimmered, the metal seeming to melt away. The façade revealed a doorway, which Rhodey unlocked with an old school key card, and pulled open with a teeth-clenching grinding sound. A cold burst of air hit them in their faces, a stale smell with acrid undertones, and the void opened up before them, dimly lit with the occasional neon light. 

“What is this?” Loki asked curiously. 

“The tunnels.” Rhodey explained. “Part of the sewer system. Entrance to the underworld. Used to move goods sold through the Dark-Scape. Smuggle banned shit into the city.” 

“So you’re a black-market dealer?” 

“Who isn’t, in this town?” Rhodey shrugged. “Everyone deals under the table. Hard to stay afloat otherwise, unless you’re on the Grandmaster’s payroll. And even then, ain’t like those guys on frou-frou avenue are clean either.” 

Loki nodded in understanding, then stepped forward, striding through the doorway. 

Rhodey planted a hand on Tony’s shoulder, brown eyes meeting brown eyes, gazes full of emotion. “Take care of yourself, okay?” He said softly. 

“You too, Rhodey. Tell Bruce I said goodbye, and... thanks for everything. Alright?” 

“Will do, Tony.” 

Tony pulled him in for one more tight hug before they separated, a lump in his throat, and he followed after Loki, disappearing into the darkness. 

Tony and Loki trudged through the dark, dank tunnels for what felt like ages in complete silence. Tony never liked it down here, the strange shifting lights, the smell of death and various bodily excretions, and the tweakers huddled in their corners staring warily at bypassers. But at least he knew they were safe enough down here. These tunnels were the greatest labyrinth on Sakaar, it was hard not to get horribly lost within them. Even if an officer found an entrance and went in, they had no hope of finding what they were looking for; only with a thorough understanding of the constantly-shifting underground AR glyphs only accessible via Dark-Scape viewing apps could one hope to navigate. In the past, it’s been said, narcs have tried to raid the tunnels and never did find their way back out. There were enough humanoid remains in some of the sections to support these stories. 

They didn’t have to worry about bounty hunters or anything either, if news of Loki’s escape had reached them already (which was pretty likely, news did travel fast on the ‘Scape). Number one rule of the tunnels was that you didn’t kill or incapacitate anyone while in the tunnels. Breaking that rule meant excommunication from the underworld, and top-priority bounties placed on your head. Didn’t matter how valuable the reward was, it wasn’t worth dying over. 

Didn’t stop the bounty hunters they passed in the halls from looking at them hungrily, though. 

“What died down here?” Loki sniffed, scrunching his nose in disgust. His voice echoed a bit, bouncing off the damp stone walls. 

“Anything and everything.” Tony responded as he led the way through the maze. 

“And I thought the smell of spilled intestines was bad.” 

Tony gave him a funny look. “Are you still high, or are you usually this morbid?” 

“...Little bit of both.” Loki admitted. 

Well, he was going to be fun to travel with. 

"_Stark_.” Came a gravelly voice, and Tony startled as a figure appeared out of the shadows beside them, a blade glinting in the neon light, and a familiar scarred face. The looming shape strode towards the pair, expression dangerous. 

“Heeyy, Tavar, ah... how’s it going?” Tony swallowed nervously, backing up. 

“You owe me for that technetium I acquired for you, boy.” The tall, grungy man growled. He had long, greasy hair, a nasty swollen gash where one of his eyes used to be, and a hook for one hand. Seriously, what was a hook hand even good for? Dumbass. 

“Right! I didn’t forget, I just ah... well you know how it is.” Tony jittered. “Just waiting on some sales to process and I’ll have that money for you-” 

Tavar grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and snarled in his face. His teeth were black and his breath smelled rancid. “You’re late on me for the last time, boy. You give me my credits, or next time I see you topside, so help me I’ll make your pretty little face look like mine.” The man’s hook was digging into the skin of his chest painfully. 

“You think I’m pretty?” Tony couldn’t help but spit out. Why did he have to have such a big mouth? 

“Gods help me, Stark, I will-” 

All of a sudden, a blinding green light appeared between their faces, and they both found themselves staring into the humming glow of a plasma blade. Tavar’s head whipped to the side to glare at Loki, who was holding his weapon to the man’s throat. “Release him, or I won’t hesitate to slit your throat to the bone.” Loki said, his face horrifyingly calm as he made his threat. 

Tavar dropped Tony and turned on Loki daringly. “You’d kill a man in the tunnels? That’s a death mark, boy.” 

Tony quickly recovered and leapt forward, grabbing Loki and lowering his dagger arm, and the young man glanced at him incredulously. “He’s new here.” Tony quickly explained. “He doesn’t know the rules yet.” 

Tavar glared between the two young men. “If you had any form of common sense, Stark, you’d have taught him the most important rule at the very least...” He then looked Loki up and down, messy brows furrowing. “You look familiar...” 

“Oh, you know, just one of those faces.” Tony said nervously. 

“No, no I’m pretty sure-” 

“Listen, ah, I’ll bring your money over to you at the Red tonight, Tavar, alright? 6PM?” Tony spouted. He could promise Tavar anything right now. He'd be long gone by the time the smuggler realized he was bullshitting. “I just need to get... uhh, Lucky, here, to where he’s going and I’ll be right there, swear on my cybernetic heart.” 

“I’ll cut it out of you if you don’t meet that deadline, boy, you know that?” 

“I’ll rip it out myself.” Tony promised, and began pushing the complaining Loki down the hall again. “See you at 6PM, Tavar.” 

The man grunted in response, staring for a while at Loki before turning and heading in the opposite direction, disappearing into the shadows. 

Tony breathed out in relief as he lead Loki down the tunnel, walking more briskly than before. 

“My name is Loki.” The raven grumbled. “Not Lucky.” 

“I know that, but he doesn’t need to know that.” Tony retorted. 

“I can kill him for you, if you want.” Loki offered. 

“No, no, that would make things a lot worse.” 

Loki shrugged. “What were you doing with technetium, anyway?” 

“Making nanoscale nuclear batteries and optoelectronic components for lightweight weapons. Highly experimental, of course.” 

“Interesting.” 

“Why?” 

“It’s the favored radioactive material of my people.” 

“Is that because it has the word ‘tech’ in it?” 

Loki glared at him. 

“I’m kidding.” Tony laughed, letting his nerves from the encounter with the frightening smuggler flow out of him. “Does that mean I’ll be seeing a lot of technetium technology in Eden?” 

“If Eden is what we think it is, then probably.” 

Tony couldn’t help a tinge of excitement at that. That explorative thrill entering his veins again. He daydreamed about discovering a hidden, high-tech society. What it might look like. 

Finally, after what felt like ages of walking, the red glare of the setting sun bled down into the dark, damp hall, and a fresh-as-Sakaar-gets breeze swirled past their noses. Tony squinted against the sudden brightness, his natural eye taking a moment to readjust. 

Before them, the trash wastes stretched out as far as the eye could see. Mountains of garbage silhouetted against the crimson sky. Ever-changing shapes that Tony had been rummaging through all of his life. It was beautiful, in a way. All those colors, all those things, just sitting there, waiting to be discovered, or be lost to the universe forever. 

As Loki strode out confidently, and Tony followed suit. He glanced back at the city that had been his home for as long as he had been alive, one last time, and bid it a silent farewell before turning his back on it forever. 


	3. (SUPPLEMENTAL) The World of Eden Code

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A supplemental guide to everything in the world of Eden Code. May be updated when necessary; if this guide receives an update, I will put a note here with the date of the modification.
> 
> 9/3/19: Added AGRICULTURE segment  
9/6/19: Added GRANOPE and MEWRAT segments  
9/7/19: Added TEMOLE segment  
9/10/19: Added VIDA character card

** Planet Sakaar **

** Type**: Trash Desert, geologically active, surrounded by cosmic gateways 

** Terrain**: Desert plains, mountain ranges, plateaus, canyons 

** Ecosystem**: Limited, fluctuating; food chain constantly changing with introductions of new species 

** Flora**: Fungi and extremophile algae only 

** Fauna**: Somewhat abundant, extremophile bacteria/archaea 

** Water**: Subterranean, limited, some surface lakes and acid lakes

** Weather**: Occasional acid rainstorms and duststorms, dry, hot during day, cold at night, no seasons 

** People**: Highly varied 

** Government(s)**: Varies from town to town. Sakaar City is a Monarchy ruled by the Grandmaster. 

** Technological Advancement**: Combination of high tech and primitive patchwork. Tech in the digital realm and cybernetics is more advanced than other forms of tech. 

\-- 

_ ** Sakaaran**** Culture ** _

Descriptions of various aspects of life on Sakaar as well as definitions of things mentioned in the story.

** Agriculture**: Although plants cannot grow naturally on  Sakaar due to the lack of soil, advancements were made in the fields of hydroponics that allowed the mass artificial growth and reproduction of surviving plant seeds scrounged up by scrappers over the centuries. Massive, unending hydroponic greenhouses are relied upon to cultivate fruits, vegetables, herbs and other edible plants. As for farming animals, there are several species bred specifically for their meat, milk, and various other excretions that are able to thrive on trash diets. The two most commonly farmed species are the **boaval**; a heavy, meaty animal roughly the size of two large pigs, reared for its nutritious flesh, its fluffy wool sheared to make cloth, and its blue milk which is used to craft butter, cheese and various other products; and the **taphen**, colorful feathered reptilians the size of small cats that produce large, protein- and vitamin-rich eggs daily. Other species include the **kino bird**, bred for its sugary gum secreted from its beak that is used as a sweetener as well as being a suitable house pet due to its endearing nature, **parchment bees**, fuzzy insects that pollinate cultivated plants and make their hives from a material that is ground down and turned into paper, and **drammoths**, which are massive beasts of burden primarily used in transportation, although less common due to the advancement of automobiles.

** Antinetics**: Antinetics are people following an idea of a pure organic way of living. They do not believe in integration with the digital world or body modification. They are fanatics who believe in wide variety of conspiracies and reject all science. They generally have comparatively short lifespans. 

** AR-Scape**: The AR-Scape is the realm of Augmented Reality; digital imagery that can be seen and interacted with via cybernetic implants. The AR-Scape is considered just as, and perhaps more, important than reality, and so it is unheard of for anyone not to have an implant capable of aiding them in seeing and interacting with it. The AR-Scape combines advertising for reality with a virtual world of avatars, art, shops and digital creatures. Most books, catalogs, videos and databases can only be accessed via the AR-Scape, for example. Transactions, chats and video calls are visualized through the AR-Scape. People who create art, design virtual items, etc. are known as ARtists. 

** Colossi**: Colossi are giant, virtual AR creatures the size of mountains. Each individual appears vastly different from the others. They slowly wander the planet, interacting with nothing and seemingly incapable of reacting to virtual or physical stimuli. No one knows where they came from, or why they exist. Some believe they are merely a massive art installment by an ARtist long ago. 

** The Contest of Champions**: The Contest of Champions is a gladiator program created by the Grandmaster for his entertainment, televised for widespread enjoyment. ‘Champions’, as the fighters are called, are people captured and enslaved by the Grandmaster for various reasons, and are forced against their will to fight in the Arena to the death. Although almost everyone is aware of the fact that the fighters are not willing participants, propaganda spread by the Grandmaster’s PR team leads them to believe that all champions were once criminals and now have been given the chance for glory. The Contest is treated like any popular sport, where champions are bet on and idolized depending on their degree of success. Popular, undefeated champions like Loki even have merchandise dedicated to them. 

** Cosmic Gateways**: The cosmic gateways are one-way portals from other parts of the universe, where things forgotten and left behind fall through the cracks of reality and gravitational anomalies. The gateways open around Sakaar, where anything that falls through them winds up, like great garbage chutes of the universe. Most of the things that fall through are inanimate objects, materials, and the like. But many living organisms survive trips through, seeding the planet with life and feeding its transplanted ecosystem. On occasion, sentient people may fall through as well. The original Sakaarans were all people who had fallen through the cosmic gateways, enough compatible species to start surviving colonies and eventually dominate the planet. 

** Cybernetics**: Cybernetic technology is one of the most highly advanced fields on Sakaar. It is considered mandatory to at least invest in a cybernetic implant that allows one to visualize and interact with the AR-Scape, though it is very common and fashionable to sport many other forms of cybernetics and body modification. 

** Dark-Scape**: A dark mirror of the AR-Scape, the Dark-Scape is the untrackable black market of the digital world. Bootlegging, pirating, sharing of censored content and selling of illegal products. For example, if you, somehow, obtained a kidney from an unwilling donor, the Dark-Scape is where you would sell it. Also used for secure chats and banking accounts and the like for those who don’t want to be tracked by governing forces. 

** DetoX**: A chemical capable of removing many different types of toxins from the blood stream. Used primarily to aid in sobering up and immediate response to overdose. 

** Direwolves**: The units known as Direwolves are massive, robotic wolves manufactured by the Grandmaster’s engineers. They are sent out at night to collect precious scrap for the Grandmaster’s inventory. They are extremely dangerous and highly aggressive. The Grandmaster’s PR team claims that the deaths of scrappers as a result of Direwolf attacks are due to a self-preservation module in the beasts and that the scrappers likely attacked first, but most lowly scrappers are aware that this is an intentional behavior programmed to take out scrapping competition from freelancers. 

** Fashion**: Although the impoverished will wear anything they can get their hands on, the current fashion trend of Sakaar is reminiscent of edgy punk and goth styles combined with avant garde flairs in dark monotones contrasting with neons. LEDs and glowing tubing are often incorporated, and sharp, bold angles in the makeup. The highest classes often wear wild garb of extreme shapes and volumes, and the same look is hardly ever sported twice. 

**Granope**: A medium-sized animal resembling a reptilian coyote. They hunt for small scavengers to eat, and hidden mushrooms, depending on what their bodies need at the moment.

** GrEZ**: An extremely powerful psychedelic that renders the user immobile for the duration of the main trip. Many users report visiting other dimensions and meeting strange beings in vivid, high-color experiences during a trip. Aftereffects may include temporary confusion, and sensory and fine motor impairment. 

**Mewrat**: A small rodent with quills; mutated from Midgardian rats and evolved over the centuries. The most prolific creature on the planet due to its ability to eat anything and reproduce quickly.

** Radiation Remediation/Detoxification**: The fact that materials of all sorts are constantly flowing in through cosmic gateways means a lot of dangerous elements and gases are released onto the surface and circulate through the water system. Much of Sakaar is irradiated and toxic in its natural state. Flora and fauna species that are able to withstand or detoxify food materials are the only ones that survive. Due to this planetary characteristic, radiation remediation and detoxification technologies are some of the most advanced fields used by Sakaaran people. The most popular and readily available is the **Rad-Gun**; a small handheld gun that shoots lasers tuned to destroy radioactive and toxic particles in organic substances. 

** The Sauce**: Technical name being _hyacintho_ _sanguinem_, The Sauce is a powerful street drug with a variety of strange effects including hallucinations, a general high, and the sensations of electricity coursing through the veins and mild static charge. It is highly addictive and sought after, although it is also rare due to the material it is extracted from being a limited resource. Frequent users of The Sauce become more aggressive, experience mania, lose touch with reality, become desperate to attain more of The Sauce, and become convinced of being a powerful entity. Addicts are known as Saucers or Sauce Boys. 

** Scrapping**: Most of Sakaaran tech and construction is fed by materials collected by scrappers. Scrapping is a lucrative business in this world where everything was repurposed, and materials were constantly streaming through the cosmic gateways around the planet. Although a dangerous trade due to the volatile conditions of the planet, vicious wild animals and the Direwolves, scrapping is a known way to turn a quick dollar. It is estimated that at least a third of the population are scrappers or have been scrappers at some point. 

** Technomancers**: Technomancers are a very rare people born with a mutation that endows them with a variety of electricity- and tech-related powers. The technomancer gene can mutate in almost any sentient species on Sakaar, though its makeup and cause is unknown. Due to their rarity and potential usefulness, technomancers are a highly hunted people. Most are in hiding or captivity. 

**Temole**: A fat, hairless creature similar in appearance to a beaver, around the size of a large cat. They lay eggs and make nests in the garbage, feeding on mushrooms and algae.

** Transplanted Culture**: Sakaar has its own colorful, overarching culture developed from necessity and environment; but each sentient people that fall and take a footing there bring pieces of their own cultures from their own worlds, and over time, some of it may become incorporated. For instance, Sakaarans consider all of the gods spoken of in all religions to be real in some form, and thus prayers, curses, and the like are made to gods of many different origins. A god from one culture may be prayed to by someone from another, for example. Most original cultures decay over the millennia, but often certain sayings, fashion items, and bits of language are passed down by the generations; though evolving as they lose their original meaning. 

\-- 

_ ** Characters ** _

Details on some of the major characters in the story.

** Tony Stark **

** Age**: 25 years 

** Gender**: Male 

** Species**: Human 

** Profession**: Scrapper/Engineer 

** Notes**: Tony was born in Sakaar City, became an orphan in his teens, and has been a scrapper and tinkerer for as long as he could remember. His bodily modifications include a cybernetic heart powered by an arc reactor embedded in his chest, a cybernetic AR-Scape-Visualizing right eye, the standard internal AR-Scape-Interactive wrist implant, and a prosthetic mechanical arm controlled by neural interface that he designed himself after a bad scrapping incident left his right arm requiring amputation just below the elbow. After this incident, Tony created mechanical, weaponized power armor (known as the Iron Man) that he wears on expeditions. He also designed an extremely powerful neural network called JARVIS, who controls the power armor when Tony is not using it, and a cat-sized, limited-AI sandbot capable of surfing trash heaps with a surface-mounted long arm that he calls DUM-E; which is, admittedly, more of a troublesome pet than a useful tool. 

** Loki **

** Age**: 23 years 

** Gender**: Male 

** Species**: Technomancer Human 

** Profession**: Arena Champion 

** Notes**: Loki was captured by raiders at the age of 12 and sold to the Grandmaster. Seeing his potential to be one of his most powerful Champions, En Dwi Gast had him trained by the best fighters at his disposal. After almost a year of hard, relentless training, Loki was put into the Sakaaran Arena at age 13. He quickly rose to the top as an undefeated champion, each of his weekly fights ending in a kill. He went undefeated for 10 years until Tony Stark broke him out of the Grandmaster’s Palace. He has a scar cutting down through his left eyebrow and down past his eye, a small scar extending up a short way from his jawline on the left side, and is missing his left canine tooth. 

** En ****Dwi**** Gast (The Grandmaster) **

** Age**: Unknown 

** Gender**: Male 

** Species**: Elder of the Universe 

** Profession**: Monarch of Sakaar City 

** Notes**: As far as anyone alive knows, The Grandmaster has been the ruler of Sakaar City for as long as it existed. The man doesn’t seem to age, and although he appears to be human, he claims to be of an ancient race known as the Elders of the Universe. He is rather loony, out of touch with reality, and insists on living a highly lavish lifestyle. He always gets what he wants when he wants it, and anyone who dares defy him or merely annoys him may face the ‘melt stick’. He has no problems with spending tax money on luxury and selfish interests. He enjoys regular large parties that often feature drugs and orgies. He owns the Sakaaran Arena, where captured people are sent to fight to the death against their will. His reach extends far across all of Sakaar, with many agents and scrappers under his employ and various robotic units in his arsenal, including the dangerous Direwolves. He is the most powerful figure on the planet, and no one is safe from his grasp. 

** Dewar **

** Age**: Unknown 

** Gender**: Male 

** Species**: Titan 

** Profession**: Trainer for the Sakaaran Arena 

** Notes**: Dewar is a hulking, muscular manwho works for the Grandmaster as a trainer of the Champions. He is known and feared for his brutality. He is over 8 feet tall, has light purple skin and golden eyes.

** Vida **

** Age**: 34 years 

** Gender**: Female 

** Species**: Thalaran 

** Profession**: Bounty Hunter 

** Notes**: Vida is a famed professional bounty hunter who specializes in EMP attacks. She has gray skin, pink eyes, and pink, short hair. She is 7 feet tall and very muscular. 


	4. The Best Lies Are Seated In Truth

Tony and Loki trudged through the wind-whipped sands composed of plastic and metal particulates, kicking up the rainbow dust under their feet. They warily eyed the sky and the desert around them, expecting officers or guards to be looking for them; but the outskirts of Sakaar City were a wide area, and even though it wouldn’t be hard to spot the pair of them dressed so darkly against this barren terrain, this particular side of the city Tony knew well to be less patrolled. After about 10 minutes, small amounts of scattered garbage started appearing. It wouldn’t be long until the discarded items began piling higher and higher; better for cover, but they would need to start watching the skies for items falling through the great, fiery rifts in the sky and into Sakaar’s atmosphere. Death by falling objects was the third most common way to die on Sakaar; just below radiation-related illnesses and murder. 

“How far are you planning on joining me?” Loki asked, cutting through the long silence. 

“All the way.” Tony responded, bracing himself for this conversation he’d been expecting. 

Loki looked at him in surprise. “You... you’re going to Eden with me? Why?” 

“Well for one thing, my curiosity has always been stronger than my survival instincts.” Tony had been running through how he wanted to answer this inevitable question ever since they made it out of the Palace. He made that stupid, initial lie that he deeply regretted, and now he was stuck with it. He needed to spin this right if he had any hope of keeping Loki’s trust in him. “If there’s any potential for a secret high-tech city on this planet, there’s no way I’m not at least looking for it. I’m an adventurer at heart.” It’s not like that wasn’t true. The best lies are seated in truth, after all. 

Tony gave Loki his most genuine smile, “But more importantly, considering I’m the one who busted you out, I do feel responsible... I can’t in good conscience just send you on your merry way all alone, Sakaar is a dangerous place.” 

“I... Stark, I appreciate your concern, but I’m quite capable of handling myself.” 

“Loki, you don’t even know how to work a gun.” Tony insisted, starting to worry Loki might not actually want him along. What would he do then? Follow him at a distance? 

Loki grimaced. “Fair point. But what about your business?” 

“It’ll be there when I get back.” 

“And Tavar?” 

“Eh, I can handle him.” Tony shrugged. “He’s all bark and no bite.” Complete lie. If Tony went back to Sakaar after bringing Loki to Eden, Tavar would cut his throat the second he saw him. If the Grandmaster didn’t get to him first. 

“Well... it would be nice to have company.” Loki admitted. 

Tony grinned at him. “Well, can’t say I’m ideal; but you got me, honey.” 

“Thank you.” Loki said softly. 

“It’s no big deal.” 

Loki grabbed him gently by the arm, and Tony faced him in surprise. “I mean it, Stark.” His expression was earnest. “I... for a long time now, I truly didn’t think I was ever going to get out of there. I can’t even... I’m still processing everything, but know that what you did for me... I owe you my life. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Tony Stark.” 

Tony swallowed, trying not to let the guilt seep in and show through his face. Loki was pouring his heart out, and his eyes shone with gratitude... gratitude that Tony_ really _didn’t deserve, and he knew it. _Stop making me feel guilty you... gorgeous little shit_, Tony thought. He knew now that he needed to keep this man at arm’s length, or his heart might burst from shame. 

But Tony fought through it and smiled. “Let’s get you somewhere safe, alright?” 

Loki smiled back genuinely, and nodded; and Tony turned back to continue walking deeper into the garbage wastes, Loki at his heels. 

“Where are we going right now?” Loki asked. 

“My workshop.” Tony explained. “It’s not far. I need to gather my supplies, and we should rest for the night.” Rest sounded amazing right now. Pillow... Tony wanted his pillow... 

Loki tilted his head. “Is that safe? So close to the city?” 

“Oh trust me, my workshop is one of the best hidden locations on Sakaar.” Tony grinned. “No one’s found it in over a decade.” 

Loki said nothing, but had a curious look on his face as he followed. He was definitely interested in seeing what made this workshop so well-hidden. 

As their walk became quiet again, nothing but the sound of garbage and sand crunching under their boots, Loki found himself thinking about this turn of events, about the idea of having a companion on this journey, and about Tony Stark. The man was right about one thing. It had been a long time since Loki had been out in the world, outside of the micro-universe of the Palace and the Arena, and there was a lot he never learned. He could use someone with an understanding of the people he would have to deal with. Killing was what Loki knew how to do best, but he couldn’t just kill everyone he faced if he hoped to make it to Eden. He knew that much. 

Benefits aside, however, there was something about Tony that Loki just didn’t trust. And that something was his motive. Did he really just want to discover a secret city? And did he actually care that Loki made it to his destination unharmed? A part of him worried that Tony might be using him just to get to Eden... and the paranoia in him considered that he might actually be a spy for the Grandmaster using Loki to find more technomancers for his ring, or someone else with an interest in rounding up his people. Could that entire Palace incident, even yesterday, have been an elaborate scheme to get Loki to trust in the man, to rely on him, allowing him to slip into Eden and betray his people? He had no evidence of this, but he stored the idea away in his mind to be revisited later. They had a very long journey ahead, and he hoped to get to the bottom of Tony’s motives in due time. 

Because Loki didn’t believe anyone did anything simply out of the goodness of their heart on Sakaar. And he certainly didn’t trust anyone saying so. 

The best lies are seated in truth. And that particular lie of Tony’s didn’t have an ounce of truth to it. 

\-- 

_ “What are you lying around for, Tony Stark?” _

“There, right there. Zoom in.” Topaz ordered. Her yellow captain of the guard uniform stood out in the gray din of the room. 

The technician seated below her swiped at the holo panel, and the crisp security video feed panned in and focused on the face of the brown-haired man sitting on the floor. He had trim facial hair, and what appeared to be a metal arm. The program analyzed his facial structure and brown irises. 

“Cross reference that with the citizen registry database.” 

“I did. It's definitely him.” The technician confirmed. 

“I’m upseeeeet!” Came a voice, and Topaz and the technician straightened up and each planted a fist on their chest as their lord entered in from the halls, robes billowing out around him. The Grandmaster looked quite agitated; not a common look for the usually-calm man. 

“You know what I like about being upset?” The Grandmaster went on. “Blame. Right now, that’s the mindset that I’m in. So... who am I blaming, Topaz? Who... who am I executing for this absolutely _heinous _crime?” He waved his hands in the air for emphasis as he spoke. 

“A man named Tony Stark, my lord.” Topaz responded. 

“Why does that name sound... terribly familiar...” 

“He also tried to have you killed early this morning, sir.” 

“Ah, yes.” The Grandmaster clapped his hands together. “That’s at least two executions for... for Tony Stark. Topaz, I need you to figure out how I can execute a man twice. Put your best people on that.” 

“Consider it done, my lord.” Topaz learned long ago it was best just to agree to do something the Grandmaster told you to, even if it was impossible. He’d usually forget about it by tomorrow. 

“Now, for the matter at hand...” The Grandmaster rubbed his chin. “It is of utmost importance that my Champion be found. Absolutely crucial. I can’t have my poor little Champion running around... cold and, and lost... Topaz, what do we do about this? Because all I have on my mind right now is, well, is execution, and I don’t have an exact number on how many people I have to execute to get my Champion back.” 

“I’ve already set my men on their trail,” Topaz informed him, “But I think you’ll have better luck finding him if we also put some less... desirable characters on the job.” 

“What, like... like the ugly guards?” 

“I mean bounty hunters.” Topaz sighed. 

“Ohhh, right right.” 

“I think they’re your best bet to finding him quickly. Finding people is what they do, and they’ll be competing with each other to get the bounty first.” 

“I do love a little ‘who’s gonna get em first?’ race.” The Grandmaster snapped his fingers at the technician. “Hey, uh, Dave.” 

“It’s Kenny, my lord.” The technician corrected.

“I want you to put me on live, to address the people of Sakaar, Kenny.” 

“Right now, sir?” 

“Yes, right now. I did say ‘live’. Didn’t I say ‘live’, Topaz?” 

“You did say ‘live’, sir.” Topaz confirmed. 

“But sir, one of your benefactors, Mr. Callahan,” The technician babbled, “he’s... running his show right now, you’ll make him upset if you cut in on it now.” 

“Topaz, melt stick this man.” 

“Wait, what?” 

“Right away, sir.” Topaz lifted the Melt Stick, and the technician jumped in alarm. 

“No, no no no wait wait-!” Suddenly the air was filled with screams as the ray hit the man’s body and he began to disintegrate into a buddle of blue goo. The guards at the door stiffened as Topaz and the Grandmaster watched this horrifying, slow death with unconcerned faces. 

“Ah, I do love the smell of burnt toast in the morning.” The Grandmaster stepped back a bit as the puddle oozed near his feet. 

“It’s nighttime, sir.” Topaz reminded him. 

“It is?” The Grandmaster looked confused for a moment and then chuckled cheekily. “Guess I’ve been busy. Alright, now... uh, get me another one of those.” He pointed at the puddle that used to be Kenny. “Get me Dave.” 

“We don’t have a technician named Dave, sir.” 

“Well then find a Dave and give him Kenny’s old job. There’s a vacancy. I don’t like vacancy.” 

“Right away, sir.” Topaz turned and went to find a technician to inform their name was now Dave. 

“Hear ye, hear ye! This is your Grandmaster, speaking. This_ is _on, right Dave?" 

The face of the Grandmaster suddenly appeared on every holo screen, popped up on the AR-Scape in every corner of the city, and all stopped what they were doing and gave him their attention. Stopped in the streets, in their homes, in the bars and … well, toilets probably. 

"It’s bad news, bad news today. Sakaar, hear ye. Attention please.” The Grandmaster waved his hands on the screens. “I have some bad news. My beloved, exalted Champion has turned up missing. It seems that the criminally seductive Tony Stark has stolen him away.” 

Gasping filled the street, raised eyebrows and hands to mouths as the images of Loki and Tony Stark appeared on the screens. The Grand Champion was gone? Kidnapped by this Tony Stark? How could this happen? What was this dastardly Stark character going to do to their poor Champion? Their murderous little blood-soaked darling? 

“Now, now don’t worry though, we’re gonna find him. But I need your help. We’re gonna get through this together, Sakaar.” 

The crowds muttered to each other, excited at the prospect of helping the Grandmaster. 

“Take to the streets, take to the roads, take to... wherever. 40million credit reward on Tony Stark, dead or alive. And whoever brings back my Champion, my beloved Champion, well... I’ll make you the richest, uh, person in all the city. No, in all of Sakaar. Second to me, of course." 

The mad scramble ensued. The communication networks exploded. The bounty hunters grabbed their guns. 

Rhodey and Bruce stared at the holo screen in horror. 

\-- 

Tony and Loki stood at the foot of what seemed like any other of the trash piles they’d passed. Quite unsuspecting, just a mountain of variously-shaped items in an array of colors and textures, like all the others. 

“Was all of this a metaphor?” Loki asked. “The world is your workshop?” 

“No, it’s much more clever.” Tony grinned, and walked forward. He reached out and pulled at the door of what looked like a half-buried refrigerator. Loki peered over the man’s shoulder, but the unit looked just the same as any other he’d seen in his life, albeit empty. 

“Is _this _a metaphor?” 

“You know, if you keep asking that, one of these days, you might actually find a good metaphor.” 

“What do you think I did all day in my cell?” Loki mumbled. 

Tony reached into the fridge and pressed his hand to the back wall of it. All of a sudden, a blue light appeared, seeming to scan his hand. It beeped, and the back wall of the fridge clicked open, a hiss of air escaping. Tony pressed it open, and a dark passageway was revealed. He glanced at Loki with a wink before turning and ducking inside. “JARVIS, lights please.” 

Loki blinked as orange lights flickered on, emanating from the corridor through the fridge, and watched as Tony disappeared down what seemed to be a staircase leading down into the trash pile. 

“Coming?” Came the man’s voice from down within. 

Loki shook his head and stepped into the fridge, ducking down to fit inside, and followed Tony down the steps. He started when he heard the door close behind him, and swallowed, dearly hoping this wasn’t a bad idea. 

As the stairs twisted downward, however, his eyes widened with amazement, fears forgotten in place of wonder. 

Deep down under this unassuming trash heap, Tony’s workshop was a metal bunker; packed with worktables, engineering equipment, half-crafted devices, an impressive computer station, and what looked like a small open-concept bedroom and kitchenette. It was small, but seemed cozy and well-lit; didn’t even smell bad like the garbage pile outside. Tony headed right for the kitchenette, and began rummaging through the shelves. 

After pulling off his stolen cloak and placing it on what seemed to be a coat rack, Loki gingerly walked around until he stopped in the center of the workshop and turned in all directions, giving everything a glance-over. He could feel the electricity thrumming all around him, his senses hungrily reaching out to slide along the wiring and circuitry and taste the power cores. He spotted something particularly interesting in one corner, and was about to go look at it more closely, when he felt something whack against his arm. He glanced over and realized it was Tony, handing him what looked like a bag of boaval meat jerky. “I imagine you’re hungry, considering we ran out on lunch.” 

Loki took the bag. “You really were a terrible meal fetcher.” He popped it open and reached in to pull out a piece of the dried, purple meat. 

“Yeah well, I didn’t get paid enough to try hard.” Tony smirked and then turned to head over to his storage area. “Feel free to poke around if you want, just don’t go pressing any buttons. Or playing with the guns.” He added wistfully. 

Jerky in his mouth, Loki wandered over to that interesting thing he had seen before the interruption. He’d really never seen anything like it. Standing before him, in some kind of... display? Charging station? Was a large, red and gold metal human. Was it some sort of robot? Had Tony Stark actually managed to create a functional humanoid robot? Loki tilted his head and looked at it from all angles. He realized it had what appeared to be weapon components attached at various points. The right arm was different from the left as well, like a light exoskeleton compared to the solid metal of the left. Curiously, he reached out to touch it- 

“_I would ask master Stark to include you to the list of people allowed to come near the Iron Man before attempting to touch it, sir._” 

Loki jumped back with fright at the sudden voice emanating from the face of the robot thing, dropping the bag of jerky and nearly choking on the piece he had been chewing on. 

He heard Tony laugh from the other side of the room. “Relax, that’s just JARVIS.” Tony was pulling out what looked like a small solar energy collector, and placed it on a workbench, blowing off the dust before wiping his hands off on his pants and walking over to where Loki was. “Promise you won’t fry the circuits?” 

Loki blinked, looking back and forth between Tony and the machine. “Ah... alright? I’ll try not to.” 

“Cool. JARVIS, add Loki to the list of people who don’t get zapped.” 

“_Done, sir._” 

“Is JARVIS... the robot?” Loki asked. 

“Nah, JARVIS is an AI, and this isn’t a robot.” Tony reached out and adjusted one of the gauntlets on the thing. “It’s a suit. A power suit. I wear it when I go scrapping for extra protection, lifting heavy things, etcetera.” 

Loki raised his eyebrows, and tentatively reached out to touch the suit on the chest, realizing that the triangular hole at the center matched the glowing reactor on Tony’s chest. The metal was cool under his fingers, and he closed his eyes. His senses drifted out into the electrical systems of the suit, travelling up the wires, through the circuits, exploring every inch of this technological wonder at the speed a neuron fired. Though it was absolutely built to be powered by the arc reactor on Tony’s chest, the thing also had its own secondary arc reactor in the back. Backup power, perhaps? It was the most elaborate thing he’d ever experienced, and felt a jolt of thrill burst through his veins, like discovering the ancient city of a highly advanced civilization. 

When he reached one particular component, he was shocked when his senses wrapped around a battlefield of electromagnetic pulses. He was overwhelmed by a strange, powerful feeling of _ presence _, opening his eyes in surprise and snatching his hand back. 

“_Hello there, master Loki._” Came JARVIS’s voice, seemingly amused by the intrusion. 

“JARVIS, you’re _beautiful_.” Loki said in awe. 

“_Thank you, sir. I do try._” 

Tony was staring at him with a raised eyebrow. “...are you flirting with my AI?” 

“Did you create him yourself?” Loki asked, turning to him, expression of wonder. 

“Yeah?” 

“And the suit?” 

“I did, why?” 

“This is the most impressive work I’ve ever seen.” Loki shook his head, and then bent down to pick up the bag of jerky he’d dropped, cringing as pain burst in his ribs before he straightened back up again. “The Grandmaster would have loved to have you work for him.” 

Tony felt a pang of sadness at that statement, considering that was never going to happen now. “Heh, that’s all I ever wanted.” He turned to the workbench behind the, fiddling with some tools absent-mindedly. “Becoming a Grand Engineer was... is, my primary life goal.” He corrected himself quickly, hoping Loki didn’t notice. 

“So why aren’t you one?” 

“I mean, I was working hard on getting noticed. I was making connections.” 

“And you’re putting that on hold to bust a random stranger from enslavement and help him follow a ghost pattern to a place that may or may not be real?” Loki inquired, leaning back against a workbench and folding his arms. 

Tony shrugged nonchalantly. “Not the craziest thing I’ve done.” 

“You can still go back, you know.” Loki said softly, looking down at his feet. “You can just send me on my way tomorrow.” 

“Do you not want me to come?” 

“No, no I do, I just... don’t want to be more of a burden than I’ve already been.” 

“You’re not a burden. My dreams aren’t going anywhere.” Tony grinned. “I’m excited to find Eden. And for adventure.” 

“What if it’s not real?” Loki glanced sideways at him. 

“Then it’s not real. But hey, all the great explorers never would have become the great explorers if they didn’t take that chance.” 

“I suppose.” 

“Hey, by the way... any chance you can record the coordinates for me so I know where we’re headed?” Tony asked casually, typing something into his AR interface. “I could plug it into the world map, get a sense of which region it's located in.” 

Loki shook his head, however. “It’s not coordinates like an address, or latitude and longitude.” He explained. “The code translates into... well, it’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t a technomancer. It’s... essentially a feeling... a sense on which way to go. When you turn in the right direction, it feels right. Like a compass, I suppose.” 

Tony felt his heart sink down deep. So he was going to be following around a human magnet, hoping it was leading them in the direction of _something_? What if they went all that way and discovered they had simply been drawn to the magnetic center of Sakaar the whole time? 

“I know it sounds... sketchy.” Loki must have seen the failing faith in his face. “But one thing I know for certain is that this is an intentional signal. Like a beacon. Whoever is emitting it wants me to find them.” 

“What if it’s, like... a technomancer trap?” Tony pointed out. “Technomancer hunters would love it if you found them.” 

“Then it’s a technomancer trap.” Loki shrugged. “I’m still going, whether you’re coming or not.” 

“I’m coming. I just really hope it’s not a technomancer trap.” Tony winced. “Any idea how far it is, at least?” 

Loki stuck his tongue through his toothgap thoughtfully. “It feels very far away right now, but... I don’t think I can really gauge what that means until we’ve gone a ways, and I have a feeling to compare it to.” 

“Hm.” Tony nodded, frowning a little before turning to the Iron Man suit. He was too tired to think right now. He hadn’t gotten any sleep after talking to Bruce last night, and got up early to start his scheme, so it had been a very long day for him. Also what with all the running from peril and all. He could feel his body crying for sleep. “JARVIS, gather the supplies for me, will you?” 

“_Of course, sir._” At that, the eyes on the Iron Man suit lit up, and the form sprang to life, stepping out of the dock and startling Loki out of his skin. 

“I thought you said it wasn’t a robot?” He gulped. 

“It’s a suit, but JARVIS can control it.” Tony corrected, as he turned and headed over to the little open-concept bedroom. “He can make it do anything I can.” 

Loki warily watched the suit walk past him towards the storage shelves, the uncanny valley putting him on edge. The Grandmaster would have loved this. He could have even more hallways if he could just mass-produce guards to patrol them. 

Tony pulled out a couple of sleeping bags and stacked them on top of each other on the floor a short ways away from the bed, tossing a spare blanket and pillow on top. “Enjoy this luxury sleeping arrangement while you can,” Tony said as he gestured to the sleeping bags, “it’s gonna suck from tomorrow night on. Camping every night is hard on the skeleton.” 

Loki pulled away from the workbench, leaving the bag of jerky behind as he headed over to his designated sleeping area, glancing at the metal suit that was busy pulling objects out of storage one last time before pulling off his boots and padding over to the sleeping bags. Tony was right about that, he knew. He’d been sleeping on a luxury plush mattress with dozens of pillows for years. This was going to take some getting used to. He’d be sore for a while. 

“What did you do to the suit, by the way?” Tony asked as he worked on setting his own bed. “When you touched it?” 

“I was exploring it.” Loki explained, unbuckling his thigh holsters, unclipping the circlet draped around his neck from its chain, and pulling off his fingerless gloves as he spoke. “Wandering through the electrical components to understand it and how it works.” His voice became muffled when he spoke as he was pulling off his shirt over his head. Tony couldn’t help but glance over after he pulled off his own t-shirt, absent-mindedly working on unbuckling the shield vest underneath. 

As he’d noted the first day he had broken into the Palace, Loki was pale and thin, but lean, light muscling evident in his arms and back. He still had bandages wrapped tightly around his ribs, and Tony winced a little in sympathy when he recalled their fall out of the vent earlier. But now, entirely exposed like this, Tony noticed a few other things as the man went to strip down to his boxers for sleeping. 

That otherwise smooth, creamy skin was marred by scars and bruises of varying degrees of healing. It made Tony wonder about what Loki’s fights were usually like. He’d taken a considerable hit from The Whale, still had that patch on his temple from it; but the entire crowd and Loki himself seemed very surprised when that happened. Like it wasn’t a regular occurrence. If that was true, and Loki usually took down his opponents without taking much damage, then what was all this from? 

Tony also noticed bruising around the insides of his arms, and what was likely needle marks. He did say drugs were common to his routine, so he assumed they were from that. Most interestingly, though, was a tattoo that ran up the side of his torso in shimmering blue. Tony sat down on his bed as he pulled his own pants off, tilting his head to try to read the lettering as Loki knelt down to fold his clothes. The tattoo seemed to read ‘**TM:393:GM**’, in thin, straight lettering. 

“What does that number mean?” Tony asked curiously, tossing his pants to the side. 

Loki glanced back at Tony, then down at his tattoo. “My Arena ID. ‘Property of the Grandmaster’, essentially.” 

“That must have hurt, branding across your ribcage like that.” Tony winced. One of the last places he would ever choose to get an intentional tattoo, other than the spine. 

“As a 12-year-old? Yes. I screamed a lot.” Loki confirmed, stacking his clothes beside him, circlet placed on top, and then sitting back cross-legged on the sleeping bag. 

Tony raised his eyebrows in surprise. “_12_?!” 

“I suppose you don’t keep up with the Contests?” Loki looked slightly, bitterly amused. 

Tony leaned back, resting his hands on the bed. “Honestly? Never watched one until the night before I met you. Never paid attention to the raving about it either. Why?” 

“Most followers of the sport are aware that I’ve been fighting in the contest since I was 13.” 

“Jeeesus, _13_? What the fuck? People actually watch little 13-year-olds fight to the death?” 

“I was the youngest by far at the time, but... yeah. I suppose they do.” Loki frowned, looking down at his own hands. 

“And I thought my childhood was rough.” Tony shook his head. He’d always found the Grandmaster a bit strange, disturbed by the occasional public executions, and as a scrapper he was generally indignant towards the man’s insistence that his Direwolves and scrappers on his payroll be the only ones allowed to scrap in the area... but throwing a 13-year-old boy into a ring to kill or be killed? That was fucked. 

Loki only shrugged, though, as he draped the blanket Tony had supplied over himself and lay back, wincing as he twisted his torso, and rested his head on the pillow. “You learn to get tough fast.” He said darkly. “And kill faster.” 

Tony swallowed, those words sending a chill up his spine. He shook his head and turned to mirror Loki’s actions, releasing his prosthetic and placing it on the table before getting into his own bed and laying back, breathing out his stresses. He pulled the blanket up to his neck, covering up the blue glow of his arc reactor. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, melting into the mattress, thinking about how this was going to be the last time he’d ever sleep here. Last time he smelled these sheets, drifted off to the hum of electronics. “JARVIS, lights please.” 

“_Yes, sir._” 

The lights gently faded until they were cast in darkness, and Tony sighed, turning over onto his side and closing his eyes. Best not to think about it. 

As they lay silently for a while, the gentle whir of the electronics soothing, and the sound of the Iron Man suit obediently packing in the far corner, Loki suddenly spoke up through the darkness, voice soft, “Seriously, though... thank you, Tony.” 

“For what?” 

“Getting me out of there... everything you’re doing now. I’ve been a slave for 10 fucking years. I never even dreamed... I didn’t dare dream escape could ever be possible. I resigned myself to the idea that I was going to be stuck fighting for my life every week until I died or went completely mad in that cell.” Loki breathed out. “So... thank you.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Tony swallowed, hoping Loki wouldn’t make a routine of this. “I’d hope someone would come along and do the same for me.” 

Loki yawned. “I hope we find Eden.” He turned over, snuggling up in the blanket. “And it’s everything we want it to be.” 

Tony lay there in the silent darkness, eyes open wide, feeling sick to his stomach with guilt and shame. He suddenly wasn’t sure anymore whether he could do this... keep up this lie. Accept this gratitude he didn’t deserve. Loki was so genuine and heartfelt. He couldn’t stand keeping up this pretense in the face of pure honesty. He wondered if maybe... maybe he should tell Loki right now. Tell him before it goes too far, before it’s too late. Tell him the truth about what he had intended to do initially... well, maybe not that part. Not about the drugging, anyway. Tell him that he hadn’t come to let him out, that he just came to talk, and then discovered that there was a warrant out for his arrest and his execution was certain so Loki and Eden seemed like the best option at the time- 

But then he heard Loki snoring, and Tony breathed out all his thoughts. It was too late. He was stuck with it now. Stuck with the lie, the shame. He just needed to accept that. He turned over with a sigh. 

He’d lived this long with shame in every breath he took, he could handle a little more. 

\-- 

Tony slowly stirred in his sleep, grumbling when the feeling of a throbbing headache and sore eye began to seep into his peaceful sleep. A dim light was bleeding in past his eyelids, and he suddenly realized he was hearing a shuffling sound. He snapped his eyes opened and looked up in confusion. Did a mewrat get in again? 

But no, as his brain recalibrated to his eyesight, he realized he was watching a half-naked man with a very nice body pulling on a shirt. His drowsy, heavy mind wondered for a bleary moment when he had decided he had the funds to afford such a pretty whore for the night, and more importantly, why was he up and dressing instead of waking up warm in his arms right now? 

That was when the man turned his head to glance at something, and Tony saw that flash of bright green in his eyes; and Tony was stabbed in the gut with the sudden memory, anxiety and dread of everything that had happened yesterday. He sat bolt upright, eyes wide, as the panic rushed through his veins. 

Loki glanced at him and blinked. “Morning?” Tony’s hair was sticking in many directions, and his face had the print of the pillow pressed into it. Loki fought back an amused smirk. That was pretty cute, he couldn’t help but think. 

Tony rubbed his eye, breathing out and letting the stress flow out of him, clearing his mind before giving the man a half smile. “Morning. Fine day to begin a lengthy, life-changing journey, eh?” 

“There’s no bad day for that, in my opinion.” 

Tony yawned and stretched before tossing back the blankets, cracking his neck and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “JARVIS, how’d the packing go?” He reached over and grabbed his prosthetic arm, pulling it over the stump and securing it before testing the flex. 

“_Everything we will need on the journey is packed and stored on the Iron Man suit, sir._” JARVIS responded. 

“Did you find some extra clothes that might fit Loki?” Tony was bulkier than the other man, but he knew he had a few articles of clothing around that were too tight for his frame. 

“_I did, sir._” 

Loki glanced down at his clothes, as though wondering what was wrong with them. 

Tony smirked as he pushed himself up from the bed. “Trust, me, you’re gonna want a change on the long road. Sweat and garbage stench stick to clothes like flies on a carcass.” He stalked over to the kitchenette in his boxers, bare feet a bit cold against the metal floor. “Eggs for breakfast? Only fresh stuff I have in here, should probably use it up... we’re not gonna be back here.” 

“Sure.” 

As Tony pulled out the hot plate and the carton of green-speckled taphen eggs, Loki sat on Tony’s unmade bed to work on pulling his knee-high boots on. He winced as his spine bent. He was even more sore than yesterday, after sleeping on the floor. The sleeping bags were plush as they came, but his bed at the Palace had been so soft. His body felt stiff, his ribs a dull, burning ache. The tape that held the patch to his temple was beginning to itch, so he reached up and gently began peeling it off. The cotton came away easily, and he glanced at the dark red blood stain before tossing it into the garbage container nearby. He gingerly touched his temple, and felt the rough scab that had formed. He hoped this one wouldn’t scar. He had enough scars on his face as it was. 

As he sat there on the bed, studying Tony while he cracked eggs over the hot plate and listened to the sizzling, Loki thought about what a strange situation he’d found himself in. How quickly he’d gone from the same droning routine of training, fighting, killing and sleeping he’d found himself stuck in on repeat for 10 straight years... to sitting in a bunker under a trash pile while a strange man made him eggs. Crazy, how after so many years of waiting, how something like that can just... happen, in a matter of hours. 

Of course, as it was wont to do, this train of thoughts led him down a rabbit hole he wouldn’t choose to follow consciously, but his mind did like to get away from him sometimes. When he was thinking about how comfortable and safe this bunker made him feel, he started thinking about what would happen if, after they left this place, they got caught. If the Grandmaster’s agents found them, managed to take him down. He’d fight tooth and nail, but... they caught him once, they could do it again. And what then? What if they did manage to drag him back there... back to Sakaar City, to the Palace, to his cell. Back to his routine. Back to training. Back to Dewar. 

He felt a horrible chill rush through his body, his stomach taking a dive when that name popped up into his head. His ribs, all of the bruises that decorated his body; they all seemed to cry out at once, amplifying in pain, as if to remind him what would happen if he went back there. The man would punish him for leaving. Thoughts of his past regular encounters flooded his mind. Oh gods, no... it would be worse. It would be so much worse. He couldn’t even imagine what worse would entail, but that man was an imaginative one. Where Loki looked for the most efficient ways to kill people, that man always... _ always _looked for the most painful... 

That’s when Loki realized he’d started hyperventilating, and clutched at his chest, feeling like his heart was going to burst out of his body, struggling to catch a breath. 

Tony glanced over and had a double-take in surprise. “Oh, jeez.” He dropped the spatula, abandoning the eggs to walk over to Loki, who was shaking terribly, eyes wide. “You alright?” He asked with concern. 

Loki fought against the darkness threatening to overtake him, eating away at his vision, ears ringing. He swallowed and managed to nod, and get out, “Y-yeah, just ah... hangover effects...” He lied. He bent over and held his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut, willing himself to calm down. 

To his surprise, he felt something touch his hand, and opened his eyes to look up. He found Tony taking his hand and placing a cup of what looked like water in it, before patting his hand kindly and turning to walk back towards the cooking eggs. Loki felt the tremors slowly begin to ease as he stared at the man, and then back down at the cup before taking a sip of the cool liquid. 

In all of 11 years, that was the kindest gesture Loki had ever received. And he felt rather stunned by this realization. How such a little gesture could have such an effect. He wanted to thank Tony, but... the man had moved on, transferring cooked eggs to plates before rummaging around in the cabinets for the salt. 

On the other side of it, Tony had known Loki was lying. He knew a panic attack when he saw one... he had enough of them himself. But he also knew how weak it made you feel, and feeling weak and exposed in front of someone you didn’t know very well wasn’t a great experience. So rather than addressing it directly, he stayed quiet and let Loki keep his dignity. He could explain himself if he ever wanted, Tony would understand. But he wouldn’t press the issue. He wouldn’t want that done to himself, after all. 

“Breakfast, when you’re up for it.” Tony told him when it seemed the worst of the attack had passed, gesturing to the plate of sunnyside eggs, forks aside, and picked up his own before leaning back against the counter. “Alright, JARVIS.” He addressed the AI as he chewed on an egg. “Let's run through the checklist.” 

Loki got to his feet shakily, and stalked over to the counter to take the eggs. He felt nauseous, just thinking about eating them right now, but he knew he would need the protein they offered if he hoped to survive the day. He half-listened to JARVIS as he took the plate over to the nearby workbench to eat. 

“_I have packed and stored on the Iron Man suit; several changes of clothes for the both of you, all of the preserved food we possess in this workshop, two canteens full of filtered water, the compact travel water purifier,_” JARVIS's voice was rather soothing, Loki thought,“ _ four shield vests, a Rad-Gun, your spare hotplate, fully stocked first aid kit including _ _ detoX__, your compact engineering toolkit and expandable travel workbench, various charging docks, the compact solar collector, the four guns __Rhodey__ gave you and the spare handgun, all of the ammo cartridges we possess, various assortment of grenades, sound dampener, two survival knives, a __firestarter__, your flask, and I will pack the sleeping bags now, sir._” 

“Sounds like all is accounted for.” Tony confirmed, having matched JARVIS’s list against the one in his head as he spoke. 

“Engineering toolkit?” Loki spoke up, sounding better now. “So you can craft things on the road?” 

Tony nodded. “We’ll be surrounded by useful materials at all times, it’s good practice to keep tools around to put them to use if needed.” He swallowed the last of his egg and set the plate down, suddenly remembering something. “Oh, don’t forget about DUM-E, JARVIS.” 

“_I’ll activate him now, sir._” 

Loki looked at him curiously, wondering what this ‘DUM-E’ was, when suddenly something hit his shin hard and he jolted in surprise. He glanced down to find a cat-sized, rectangular robot with six spinning legs and a long, jointed arm extending out from the top. It was making excitable whirring noises, almost looking expectant. 

Tony laughed and walked over. “Sorry, the name suits him.” 

“What... what is it?” Loki asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Tony knelt down and the little robot wandered over to him. “He was just a handy... well, hand, once. But when I made the Iron Man suit and JARVIS was able to lend a more precise hand; rather than phasing DUM-E out I kinda... stuck him on a sandbot. He's just a little buddy now, really. Very limited AI; first one I ever attempted, in fact.” He smiled at the little bot proudly. 

Loki looked a bit confused. “Sounds like an unnecessary extra thing to worry about.” He stated. “Why don’t you leave it here?” 

DUM-E made a sad little whir sound. 

Tony pat the little robot on the hand. “He didn’t mean that, buddy.” He glanced back up at Loki. “He’s actually really fast, those little legs surf trash piles like they’re solid ground. Plus he’s constantly in communication with JARVIS, so he’ll be doing all the worrying.” 

Loki looked at him strangely, but didn’t say anything. Simply grabbed his plate of half-eaten eggs and wandered away. 

DUM-E lowered his hand sadly. 

“Don’t worry buddy, he’ll learn to love you.” Tony comforted the robot, before rising to his feet and walking over to the stack of clothes JARVIS had left out for him to begin getting dressed. 

As he was pulling on his black T-shirt, Loki spoke up from across the room, “Are you bringing this?” 

Tony glanced up to see the raven-haired man was holding up a sketchpad. “Uhh no, I just got it in case my workshop ever lost power and I needed to write notes. Never used it.” 

“Can I have it, then?” 

Tony blinked, “Sure?” He pushed his arm through the shirt sleeve and then gestured to a shelving unit. “There’s a few pencils in that bin over there I use for marking things.” 

“Thanks.” Loki walked over to the bin to fetch said pencils. 

“I took that satchel out for you,” Tony nodded towards a brown bag draped over one of the workbenches. “You can stick it in there with the survival knife JARVIS put inside.” 

Loki plucked out the pencils, and then headed over to the indicated satchel, shoving them inside along with the sketchpad. 

As Tony finished dressing and was pulling on his boots, he wondered what Loki intended to do with the sketchpad. If he wanted to write things, he could just do it on the AR-Scape. Who used paper these days besides-? 

Oh. 

“Did _you _do all that art on the walls of your cell?” Tony asked in surprise. 

Loki glanced up from his packing, in the middle of placing his circlet in the bag. “Yeah.” 

“Jeez.” Tony thought about the pieces he saw in there, the attention to detail, the realism, the precise linework and beautiful shading. “You’re really good.” He looked forward to seeing what Loki would sketch on the road. 

Loki gave him a little half-smile, but said nothing, turning back to his packing. He enjoyed the compliment, but he wasn’t really sure how to respond. He’d never had anyone notice his sketches before, nevermind compliment them. He did it for fun and relaxation, but he liked the warm feeling of pride that filled him upon having his work appreciated. 

Tony couldn’t help but find the young man intriguing, and wondered what other little things he’d discover about him on the road ahead. 

The warm air of the Sakaaran trash wastes warped as it rose, making far away garbage heaps appear to wobble on the horizon. Such an early hour of the morning, and it was hot already. Tony sighed, imagining all the sweating he was going to be doing today. Hopefully most of it would be from steady walking, rather than fighting and running for his life. 

Loki twirled his plasma blade hilts in his hands like an absolute show-off before shoving them into his thigh holsters, readjusting the satchel around his shoulders before heading over to join Tony. 

“Hope you’ve got stamina, because this is gonna be a lot of walking.” Tony said. 

“I’ve been more of a sprinter than a marathon runner for 10 years,” Loki said truthfully, “but I’ll be alright.” Not for a while, though. Frankly, he was going to die. Years of sitting around in his cell, most of his exercise was training and Contest fights which never lasted very long. He was more of a ‘burst of energy then rest’ kind of person than ‘steady but constant’. But he’d push through. Freedom later was worth discomfort now. 

“Well, JARVIS can carry you if you keel over.” Tony grinned, glancing at the Iron Man suit. It stood tall, shining in the sun, with all of their gear packed in large, heavy-duty sacks strapped to the back of it. The suit could carry a shit ton before becoming encumbered, so it was ideal as a pack mule. All Tony and Loki carried were their satchels with a few snacks, ammo cartridges, knives and other immediate necessities inside. 

Tony holstered his handgun on his belt, and flipped the other upside down, offering it to Loki by the barrel alongside the holster. “Do you remember the basics?” 

"Something about a safety? Yesterday is kind of a blur.” Loki responded honestly, taking it anyway and working the holster to his belt. 

Tony grimaced. “Alright, well... I’ll teach you on the road, I guess.” He turned and clapped his hands. “Okay! Final check, JARVIS?” 

“_All supplies accounted for. Workshop is now in deep sleep. We can begin the journey immediately, sir_.” 

“You ready, DUM-E?” Tony glanced down at the little robot, which whirred excitedly and skittered in a little circle. Taking that as a yes, Tony looked up at Loki. His eyes were a warm, shining green in the morning sunlight. “Ready?” He asked softly. 

Loki turned to gaze into the horizon, a limitless expanse open to him for the first time in ages. His face was filled with determination as he began walking. 

“I’ve been ready for 10 years.” 


	5. The Metal Flower Guy

Tony launched himself into the air, colliding with Loki, and the pair of them fell into the garbage heap with a crash and a yelp from Loki. The Iron Man suit was on top of them 0.01 seconds later, arms around them protectively. 

Loki groaned, his back throbbing from where he connected with something solid. “For fuck’s sake, Starmmf-!” 

His voice was muffled when Tony’s (thankfully natural) hand planted over his mouth from where he lay on top of him. Tony really needed to stop landing on him. Not that Loki _entirely _minded. Tony was one of the most physically attractive men he’d ever met; with his perfect muscles, handsome face, warm and inviting brown eyes and untiring wit. He wasn’t going to complain about close proximity, even if it ended up leaving him... slightly bothered. But_ this _was not helping his bruised ribs. This nor the other two times it had happened today. He was getting quite sick of it, in all honesty. 

Tony gazed up nervously at the garbage-embedded tarp draped over them, ears open. He could hear the gentle whirring of the drone above them as it hovered by slowly. His cybernetic eye could see its electromagnetic noise as it scanned the area with its big eye. The orb-shaped machines were designed solely to scout from the skies, but they were really only much use during the day, and gave off enough noise and signal disruption to be easily detected by instruments as precise as Tony’s. 

Right now, Tony knew for a fact that the drones were being deployed by the Grandmaster to search for them; but he’d never had any trouble avoiding them in the past, and was confident he could keep the pair of them safe from the patrolling robots until they made it out of Sakaar City’s outer limits. No doubt the things would still follow, but the further they went, the greater the area they each had to search; they would thin out eventually. 

After avoiding the first drone that had passed by earlier that morning, Tony and JARVIS set to work fashioning a tarp with lightweight trash secured all over it to drape over the Iron Man suit and its’ cargo like a cloak. When the suit was laying down on its front side, it just looked like a pile of garbage from above. A disguise that was proving effective so far. 

Finally, the drone was out of sight range, and Tony breathed out in relief, pulling his hand away from Loki’s mouth. 

Loki swatted at him immediately. “Why can’t you just fucking warn me and I can hide myself?” He complained. 

“Sorry, I let that one get too close.” 

“Will you get off me, now?” Loki growled, struggling under his weight and the shifting trash beneath him. He was never going to get this smell out of his clothes and hair. 

“Stand down, JARVIS.” Tony said, and the suit responded by releasing them and pushing itself up to its feet. Loki immediately shoved Tony off of him, who the Iron Man caught before he could fall over backwards. 

Loki pushed himself up into a sitting position, clutching at his ribs with a wince. “We need to find a better way to handle these drones.” He breathed. 

“It’s only until we reach th-” 

“Yes, yes, as you said.” Loki huffed and heaved himself to his feet, brushing his clothes off. “But we’re not doing this again, so we’re finding another way. Why don’t we just shoot them out of the sky?” 

“Because then the Grandmaster will have a trail of dead drones to follow, they’ll know which direction we’re going in.” 

“Fair enough.” Loki looked thoughtful, tongue in the tooth gap. “You said their only sensors are visual?” 

“And low-quality audio. And then immediate proximity sensors for avoiding falling trash.” 

“Well, we have a sound dampener-” 

“Short-term use, don’t wanna burn it out.” 

“Okay, we can just use it when a drone is nearing... Perhaps we can also craft an emitter that will serve as a green-screen effect to optoelectronic sensors? Emulate the environment behind us? Actually...” Loki thought a moment. “I might be able to do that myself.” 

“...how?” 

“One moment.” Loki closed his eyes and placed his fingers on his temples. 

Tony blinked, glancing around when he suddenly felt a strange prickling sensation raise his arm hairs. “What are you doing?” 

Loki’s brows were furrowed, tilting his head a bit like he was concentrating hard. “If you close your natural eye...” His voice was strained. “Can you see me through your cybernetic optical sensors?” 

Quite curious, Tony closed his natural eye, and turned off all other sensors on his cybernetic eye except the ones that converted photons to data. He was nearly shocked out of his skin when all of a sudden, Loki, who had been standing right in front of him, blipped out of existence. 

“What the fuck?!” He jumped back in shock. 

“I assume that means it worked?” Came Loki’s disembodied voice. 

“How... how!” Tony opened his natural eye and blinked when suddenly Loki was back. 

Loki opened his eyes and lowered his hands. “I altered the data that your eye was receiving to match the photon data I detected of everything behind me.” 

“...you can do that?” Tony was flabbergasted and amazed. 

Loki suddenly grimaced, bringing his hand to his nose. It came away with droplets of blood. “With effort.” More blood was dripping from his nose, and his eyes looked like they were watering. 

“JARVIS?” Tony quickly turned to the Iron Man suit, which was one step ahead of him. It reached for the first aid kit and pulled out a piece of absorbent cloth, handing it to Tony. 

Tony stepped over and handed it to Loki, who took it gratefully and pressed it to his nose. “I guess you can keep that, if this is gonna be a regular occurrence.” Tony said as he rubbed the back of his own neck, still staring in wonder. Apparently, there was a lot more to technomancy than he previously thought. He really had to convince Loki to let him take some scans. Maybe he could learn something that he could apply to his own inventions. “So... you think you can do that to a drone? Even if it’s moving through the air? You’d have to emulate your background at different angles...” 

“I should be able to, as we move as well.” 

“You have to be 100%, we can’t risk being seen by a drone even once.” 

Loki sniffed, pulling the now blood-stained cloth away and folding it to place it in his satchel. “I’m as close to 100% as I can get.” 

“_We will make better time with this method_.” JARVIS spoke up. “_We will not have to stop and wait for drones to pass if master Loki can render us a cloak while we walk."_

Tony nodded slowly. “Good point... alright, but we’re going back to the tarp if I even _suspect _that the drone saw through it.” 

“Deal.” Loki sniffed. 

“Alright, that’s enough standing around.” Tony clapped his hands, and DUM-E whirred, rolling towards him excitedly. “Back to our death march.” 

Loki nodded and turned, starting back off in the direction they had been heading before the interruption, followed by Tony and their two metal companions. 

The earlier morning had gone by rather quietly, save the two drone encounters. It was pretty awkward, really. The silence. Neither of them seemed to have anything to say. Tony was decent enough at small talk, but he didn’t want to annoy Loki if he didn’t feel like talking. He was feeling a bit irritable in the unrelenting sun, anyway. So they simply walked in silence, the only sounds being their feet crunching in the artificial sand and scattered garbage, items falling from the sky and crash-landing in the piles below the smaller cosmic gateways, and various scavenging animals rummaging in the trash or chattering at each other. 

Now, as the afternoon drew on, Tony was far too curious about what he had seen to stay quiet. “So... what else can you do?” He asked as they walked. 

“I can pop my shoulder out of place.” 

Tony laughed. “Impressive, but I meant technomancy-wise.” 

Loki had a light smirk on his face. “Magnetize metal objects and manipulate their fields... that’s how I can rip metal things open. Mmm, let's see... I can hijack electronics... and I can feel electrical charges at the atomic level.” He looked thoughtful, and relaxed. “It’s nice not having my powers bound anymore. Being able to feel the electrical charges of the world around me. It’s like waking up for the first time in a while.” 

“Didn’t they unbind you during fights?” 

“Yeah, but... there’s not really any time to bask in the feeling when you’re fighting for your life.” 

“Ah, right...” Tony thought a moment. “How did they bind you, anyway? Like... how does that work?” 

“I’m not entirely sure. Some sort of... energy, that forced my powers into a backfeed. I’d only hurt myself if I tried to use them.” 

“Energy? Like-” 

“_Sirs, detecting a humanoid heat signature_.” JARVIS cut in. 

“Oh, shit. On screen, JARVIS.” 

“_It appears to be a simple scrapper, sir. But t _ _ here has been a considerable amount of communication traffic regarding the Champion crossing the AR-Scape __today,_” JARVIS said, “_thus, I believe it would be best to steer clear of any person who may communicate our location._” 

The thermographic mode on his eye revealed a decent number of small life forms scuffling about in the garbage around them, but as JARVIS had pointed out, he noted a larger, humanoid shape appearing to be rummaging around in a far away heap. “Yeah, good point, JARV. We’ll go around.” Tony said. “Detour, Loki. And keep quiet.” He pointed towards the direction of the likely scrapper. 

“Got it.” Loki changed his direction, heading to make a wide arc. 

As their walking became an automatic march, and the pair went quiet again, Tony found himself thinking about what form of energy could manipulate technomancy like that. Did the Grandmaster have access to some sort of technology he wasn’t aware of? Or was it a lesser-known effect of a technology or energy Tony _ was _aware of? He wished he’d kept that obedience chip, so he could study it. Not that he had any intention of using it against Loki... although, it could be effective insurance. You always had to watch your own back, on Sakaar. Didn’t matter how much you trusted a person, you always had to consider the possibility that they might betray you. It was good practice to always keep the upper hand in your pocket. 

They didn't run into any drones for the next few hours; and Tony was thankful, even though he was curious to see Loki's method in action. Although he seemed determined to keep going, and had no intention of mentioning it, Loki seemed out of breath as the day drew later. His confident gate had become more stiff and labored. Although it had been a long day for him as well, Tony was used to long treks and had a decent amount of stamina; but he imagined Loki didn’t get out of his cell much. After a while of feeling empathetic discomfort for him, Tony finally decided to come up with an excuse to allow Loki to sit down for a moment. “I’m hungry. Stop for lunch?” 

Loki glanced back at him and nodded. “Alright.” He agreed breathily. 

They sat on a long, flat plastic object that they heaved out of the garbage heap together and placed on some boxes to make a bench, chewing their way through some purple boaval jerky and some flaky, well-aged, cheese of the animal’s bright blue milk. DUM-E was curiously picking through some garbage near them, and the Iron Man suit stood on standby. As he worked a piece of the meat in his mouth, Tony thought to ask, “Hey JARVIS, how long do you estimate our food provisions will last?” 

“_With regular three meals __per__ day, sir_,” JARVIS answered, “_I estimate about __three __days._” 

Tony raised his eyebrows, “Three days?! Did I really let supplies get that low?” 

“_Well, it would be almost a week’s worth of supplies for just you, sir__._” JARVIS reminded. 

“Ah, right...” Tony sighed, leaning back as he uncorked his canteen and sipped on the water. “I guess we’re gonna have to stop in a town to resupply.” He glanced over at Loki, who was leaning over, nibbling on a piece of cheese. “We’re staying in this direction, right Lokes?” 

“It’s Loki, and yes.” 

“Alright, plenty of towns scattered along this route.” 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Loki questioned. “No doubt all nearby towns have been alerted to look out for me. I think it’s best we avoid all civilization.” 

“I agree, I’d like to avoid civilization as much as possible... but we really can’t live without food.” Tony pointed out. 

Loki chewed thoughtfully. “Can you craft a bow?” He eventually asked. 

Tony blinked. “Like... an archery bow?” 

“Yes.” 

“Uhh, I’m sure I can figure it out. Why?” 

“I can hunt for food, so we can save the preserves and we won’t have to stop in town.” 

“...hunt? For food?” Tony was perplexed. 

“Yes. You know, animals?” Loki raised an eyebrow, was he talking to a child? “They run around and have an edible substance called ‘meat’ inside them?” 

“Yeah, I’ve just... never hunted before.” 

“Really? Don’t you spend a lot of time out here?” 

“Sure, but I usually take enough preserved food for the trip.” 

Loki shrugged. “Make me a bow, and I’ll have us dinner.” 

Tony blinked, processing this, but eventually got to his feet. “Alright. Rest up while I look for mats.” He started taking steps toward the adjacent garbage heap, setting his cybernetic eye to material analyze mode. “JARVIS, set up my workbench, yeah?” 

“_Of course__, sir._” 

Just over an hour later, as the sun was just hovering over the trash mountains in the horizon, Tony held the fabricated weapon in his hands. 

Sweat dripped down from his forehead and his back ached from bending over during his exertions, but here was his very first compound bow, crafted from all the lightweight metals he’d managed to scrounge up in trash heaps, strung up with some stretchy cable he found. He lifted it up and pulled back on the cable, testing the draw tension before bringing it down to make some minor adjustments. When he was satisfied, he stood up from his little seat at his expandable workbench, and carried the weapon along with an arrow he had crafted over to Loki. The man was lying back on their found bench, arms folded and eyes closed. “Now, I’ve never made or even used one of these before...” Tony began, and Loki opened his eyes to glance up at him. “I think I got the gist of it enough. You’ll have to tell me if it’s alright or if you need adjustments. But I think it’s done?” 

Loki moved to push himself up, visibly wincing as he twisted his torso. He sat there for a second, breathing out to recover, before moving to get to his feet. He took the hefty bow from Tony’s hands, and examined it. “You’ve really never made one before?” Loki asked, surprised. 

“Bit crude of a technology, for my area of expertise.” Tony shrugged. “Does it seem alright?” 

Rather than responding verbally, Loki took the arrow, loaded it onto the bow, and turned towards the garbage heap behind them. He drew back the cable, aiming up high, his form strong as he held it steady; and released the arrow with a snap. 

The arrow shot off and hit the center of a board that looked conveniently like a traditional target with a loud pop. Tony was in shock, staring up at that perfect shot, filled with awe. DUM-E whirred excitedly, clicking his fingers as though he were clapping. 

Loki turned back towards him. “It’ll suffice.” With that, he brushed past Tony, grabbing the other arrows he had crafted from the workbench, and headed off into the setting sun. “Back in half an hour, at most.” 

Tony blinked, watching him go. “Ah... alright, be careful.” When DUM-E went to follow Loki, Tony grabbed him by the arm stalk, “Stay, buddy. He’ll be back.” The little robot made a sad whir. Tony couldn’t help but feel amused by the little guy’s attachment to Loki. 

When Loki had disappeared past a garbage heap, Tony shook his head and glanced at the Iron Man suit. “Guess we’ll set up camp, JARVIS.” 

Loki padded silently through the sands, eyes sharp. He had unsnapped the toe guards and soles of his boots a short while back, leaving only the thick fabric tabi-like design that offered him a lighter footfall. He listened to the disruption of the natural electrical flow of the world around him that would indicate a larger animal, listened for the condensed static noise. Thus far, he hadn’t seen much more than small creatures shuffling about. 

However, he crouched down when he suddenly spotted pawprints in the sand, reaching out with his senses. Electrons excited by recent heat transfer, telltale signs that the creature had passed this way not long ago. He recognized the prints. A granope, he’d hunted them before. A sort of reptilian, coyote-like creature that scavenged the wastes, looking for smaller animals and mushrooms to eat. It would serve as a decent meal. 

He stood up, moving silently, following the prints he could see and the path he could feel. He ignored the mewrats, whose glowing, beady eyes peered at him from within the garbage. They were food when it was scarce, but their meat was stringy, ridding them of their quills was tedious, and you had to kill several to get enough of a fill. Tricky, too; smart little bastards. Their intelligence, rapid birthing and the fact that they could eat everything made them the most prolific small mammal on the planet. 

Loki suddenly knelt down when he heard shuffling. He crawled forward silently, until he spotted the granope snuffling through garbage. It was a large one, and it seemed the creature was on the hunt for mushrooms. That was good; less likely to have its ears trained on its environment. Loki silently reached back and pulled the bow from where he had strung it around his shoulder, simultaneously lifting an arrow. He stretched the cord back as far as it went, slowly and quietly, holding his breath; and though his sore muscles screamed at him, he steadied his trembling arms. 

He took aim, readied, and- 

A sudden flash and scream of a laser whipped through the air at the same time that Loki released on the bow. He jolted in surprise, narrowly leaping aside just in time as the laser shot past him, grazing his arm. He rolled with the fall, bow thrown from his grasp as he shot to his feet, gaze whipping towards the direction of the laser fire. Another lit up the trash around him that he easily avoided by leaning back, then turned on a dime, kicking up sand under his feet as he dashed towards the shelter of a garbage pile. 

He didn’t get the chance to leap for safety, though, because something hit him hard and he fell under its weight with a grunt of pain. Metal flashed past his vision and he lashed out with his hand to stop the blade that came towards him, catching his attacker on the arm. The man was heavy as he sat on him, growling at him to stay still as he tried to push Loki’s hand away to force his blade closer. But Loki wasn’t having it. He kneed the man hard in the crotch, who howled and instinctively fell backwards in pain, and Loki flipped himself over, reaching down to grab the hilt of a plasma blade, green glow bursting through the darkening night. 

He heard a crunch behind him and spun around lightning fast, lashing out with his blade. It sliced straight through an outstretched hand holding a laser gun, cauterized immediately, and the man shrieked in pain, reeling back. Loki didn’t waste time. While the man was in shock over his missing body part, Loki snarled, “need a hand?” and launched himself forward. He drove his blade through the man’s heart, sinking in like a hot knife through butter, before shoving his body back, which slumped over backwards with a thud, eyes-wide in death. 

He whipped back around to see the larger man groaning, struggling to get to his feet, holding his crotch as he shakily reached for his dagger. Loki dug his toes in and launched himself in a run, leaping and landing a powerful kick to the man’s chest, bowling him backwards again with a yelp. He landed on top, blade held to his throat, and asked calmly, “Before I kill you, what’s your business?” 

The man stared wide eyed in horror at the buzzing blade in his face, frozen. “P-please don’t ki-” 

“Answer the question!” Loki snarled, bringing the blade close enough to burn the man’s skin. 

The man yelped, “T-the bounty! The G-Grandm-master!” 

“How did you find me?” Loki growled. 

“G-got lucky!” He wailed. “There’s so many out l-looking, we just- just picked a direction!” 

Loki grunted, decided that was enough answer he needed, and lifted the blade. The man seemed relieved, breathing out a sigh... when suddenly Loki brought the blade down again in a lightning-fast movement and lobbed the man’s head clean off before it could register. The head dropped back and rolled a bit, the body slumping dead. 

Loki knelt there, breathing heavily for a long moment before finally pushing himself up off the decapitated body. He sheathed his blade, placing it back in his holster, while glancing around to ensure there was no one else. He mentally kicked himself for missing the signs. He should have seen them coming. He should have noticed their presence long before they spotted him. 

He was quite displeased. His arm stung, his body was sore, and his ribs were throbbing from being crushed by that bounty hunter. And they cost him a hunt- 

No, wait. 

He spotted the carcass of the granope he had been hunting, arrow through its heart, looking quite dead, orange blood trickling out. Seems he hadn’t missed his mark after all. He breathed out in relief, and headed over to it, picking up the bow along the way. At least _ one _thing hadn’t gone wrong. 

After he managed to load the animal onto his shoulder, Loki stalked away, leaving the two human bodies for the scavengers. 

Tony jolted awake from his nap when the carcass of an animal slammed down on the ground in front of him. He hadn’t meant to doze off, he was just sitting there, DUM-E folded up at his feet in sleep mode, staring into the red glow of the hot plate when he drifted. But now he was wide awake, and staring at the bleeding corpse of a granope. 

“Jesus.” He breathed, scrambling to get to his feet. Loki was stalking over to where he had left his satchel, and dumped the bow off on their bench as he went. “You... actually did it.” 

Loki raised an eyebrow at him as he rummaged through the bag. “Of course.” He fished out the survival knife, and then walked back over to where he had dumped the carcass. He sat himself down, grabbed the carcass and flicked out the knife to begin skinning it. 

Tony watched in mild horror as the scaled and furry flesh came away from the meat, orange blood draining into the dust. “Where did you learn to do all this?” He asked eventually. “All the scrappers I know rely on preserved food for expeditions, I’ve never met anyone who hunted like this.” 

Loki was quiet for a moment as he peeled the skin back, using the blade to aid in the separation. “I roamed the wilds of Sakaar as a child. Had to learn to survive.” 

Tony raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You survived in the wild as a _kid_? All by yourself?” 

Loki remained silent at that. His expression took on a pained undertone, eyes stormy. Tony got the impression this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. This was a subject that hurt to think about. So he let it slide... for now. 

“What happened to your arm?” Tony asked instead, noticing the cut in the sleeve of Loki’s shirt and the blood stain. 

Loki glanced down at it, unconcernedly. “Cut it on a piece of glass.” 

“You should clean that, who knows what was on that glass.” 

Loki shrugged. “I will.” 

“I can do it for you, if you-” 

“No, no, I’ll take care of it.” Loki cut in before Tony could finish his offer. 

Tony blinked. Maybe Loki just didn’t want to be touched? 

If Tony looked close, he would see that this was clearly a laser wound, and he would know that Loki was lying. Loki had no intention of telling him about the bounty hunters. The man didn’t need to worry about that. He would insist that Loki shouldn’t hunt anymore, that it’s too dangerous to go alone, and then they’d have to go to town to get preserved food. Tony was an overly cautious man... but Loki knew he could handle himself. He’d disposed of both bounty hunters with nothing more than a scratch all by himself, hadn’t he? 

Over the next hour, as the sun dropped down below the horizon and the sky went from red to purple, Loki finished skinning and carving up the carcass, and brought the pieces over to the hot plate to begin cooking. This device was an all-inclusive camping stove; it had vents with a fan built in under the plate, which were strong enough to suck in the smoke and scent to absorb it so as not to attract predators, it was coated in a nonstick surface so cleaning was easy, and ran on stored solar energy. It even had a dehydrating/jerky function inside. 

Tony had taken out his flask, which was full of his favorite high-alcohol whiskey, and was taking very small sips. If they weren’t going to be stopping in a town any time soon, he would have to make this last. He did try to offer some to Loki, but the man shook his head. 

“I’d rather not have my senses dulled in such a dangerous area.” 

“I mean, JARVIS is gonna be scanning the area and protecting us all night while we sleep.” Tony shrugged. “But that’s fair.” He went on sipping, allowing the alcohol to seep in and relax his muscles. 

As the meat went from dark, bloody orange to a paler peach, JARVIS, via the Iron Man suit, took out the Rad-Gun and began blasting it with the invisible rays. These rays were tuned to search out the various radiations commonly found on Sakaar, which seeped into the meat of its wildlife, and destroy them by the particle. It wasn’t perfect, but it would bring the radiation down to a safe, consumable level. 

Loki had borrowed Tony’s survival knife, and was currently using both of them to check the doneness of the meat. When he was satisfied, he stabbed a piece through with Tony’s knife and handed it to him. “We should find plates or something next time.” He noted. 

Tony took the knife with the meat, and gingerly touched it, finding it too hot at the moment, and blew on it. “Easy enough. I’ll have JARVIS melt down and sanitize some plastic later.” 

Loki nodded, turning off the hot plate and stabbing a piece of meat with his own knife before heading over and sitting down on the bench beside Tony. When he was satisfied that the meat was cooled enough, Tony took the chunk off the knife and bit down. He was shocked by how juicy and tender it was. He’d never had granope meat before. It was fairly similar to taphen, but with a stronger, gamier taste and a firmer texture. But it was so much more meaty than he expected from a scavenger, with a smoky overall flavor from the cooking; and frankly, it was delicious. It’d been a long time since Tony had a warm meal other than eggs. He devoured it hungrily, ripping the meat from the bone with his teeth, before moving to the hot plate to grab more. 

Loki couldn’t help but feel amused as he, in a somewhat more civilized fashion, sliced small pieces of meat off with his own knife before putting them in his mouth. What a contrast to the fine dining and obnoxious amount of manners he witnessed when eating meals with the Grandmaster and his elite, as he watched Tony tear into his food like a starving caveman. 

“This is _so good_.” Tony told him excitedly as he tore into a rib. “You’ve _got _to teach me how to do this.” 

“You can help me next time.” Loki promised, before turning his head to gaze up at the sky. 

It was quite dark now, the stars blinking through the swirling clouds. The only light came from the glow of the cosmic gateways, roaring with celestial fire far above their heads. With the night came the chill, their breaths beginning to crystalize in front of their faces. Loki wiped his knife off on a piece of cloth and stored it in his satchel. He was starting to feel very tired, that primal urge to curl up against the cold somewhere safe and warm. His body was aching like hell, and he considered asking JARVIS if they had any painkillers in that first aid kit. 

Tony must have noticed that tired look on his face, because he reluctantly tossed the bone he was gnawing on into the garbage heap behind them, to the joy of the mewrats, and stood up, heading over to where JARVIS had set down the sleeping bags. He grabbed one, brought it over to a nice flat area and opened it up, laying it flat on the ground. “Normally I’d make a fire this close to Sakaar City,” Tony began as he straightened out the sleeping bag, “it’s usually pretty safe, but... I don’t think we should risk having any form of beacon to anyone looking for us.” 

“Agreed.” Said Loki, yawning. The man got up and went over to the pile of storage that JARVIS had dropped off, searching for the first aid kit. 

“It’s gonna get real cold, though.” Tony warned. “These sleeping bags are insulated as it gets, but Sakaar nights are freezing... as I’m sure you know.” He sighed at the bags wistfully. “Gonna be uncomfortable, but I don’t think we’ll get frostbite at least.” 

Loki glanced back, tilting his head, “I mean, there’s an easy enough solution.” 

“Hm?” 

“We can just sleep together.” 

Tony nearly choked. 

“If we share body heat, we’ll be plenty comfortable,” Loki went on unphased, “and we can pile the second sleeping back on top for extra warmth.” 

Tony was panicking internally at the idea of sharing a squishy sleeping bag with the attractive man, but he somehow managed to remain outwardly calm and collected. “Yeah, sure. If that’s what you wanna do.” 

“It’s the most logical route.” Loki shrugged. He found the first aid kit, and was pulling out the bottle of antimicrobial wash and a cut of bandage. 

“Yeah, logical... yup.” Tony cleared his throat and headed back over to grab the other sleeping bag, bringing it over and laying it on top of the first one like Loki suggested. “Hey ah, JARVIS? Wanna prep the leftover meat for jerkifying overnight?” 

“_Of course, sir_.” 

Tony pulled off his boots, and his jacket, folding it up neatly and placing both beside the sleeping bag. He undid his gun holster and set that on top as well, leaving the gun within reach. He opted to leave his prosthetic arm on; who knew when you might wake up in the middle of the night in these dangerous wastes and find yourself needing two arms. He knelt down and peeled back the bag to crawl in, laying down and shifting himself around to get comfortable, leaving as much room for Loki as possible. He tried not to think about how awkward this was going to be. _It’s only awkward if you make it awkward_, Tony thought to himself with a sigh. 

When Loki finished patching up the cut on his arm and had popped some painkillers in his mouth, he headed over to the sleeping bags. He pulled off his boots and holsters and tossed them aside before kneeling down and pulling back the bag, getting inside and lying down with a flop. He tried not to kick Tony, who was doing his best to pretend to be sleeping already, in the process. He pulled the outer layer of the sleeping bag back over himself, yawning and snuggling down inside. 

Loki and Tony lay facing opposite directions, backs barely touching, listening to the quiet night of small animals rustling around in the garbage around them, the strange calls of Sakaar’s few insects, and the occasional item falling into the heap above their heads. They could hear JARVIS slicing off pieces of meat over where they had been cooking earlier, before setting them inside the dehydrating chamber. Tony wondered how jerkified granope meat would taste. It would be a nice supplement to their preserves, at any rate, extending their need to stop in a town for resupply by a lot. 

Neither of the men smelled particularly nice, what with all the dumpster dives and sweating that had occurred during the day; but these were smells your nose forgot after a while, and most humanoid species were slowly devolving their sense of smell anyway to cope with the ‘fragrances’ of living on a trash planet. Tony thought it would feel quite a bit more awkward, sleeping like this. He’d never slept in the same bed platonically with anyone in his life, nevermind squeezed in this close. But it turned out to be quite comfortable, in all honesty. The heat of both their bodies combined radiated throughout the sleeping bag, creating a cozy haze that Tony found himself drifting in. Slowly, the warmth overtook him, and he was carried off to sleep under the watchful eye of JARVIS. 

\-- 

As light gently filtered through his eyelids, Tony stirred. When he realized that a strange warm air was blowing into his face, he slowly opened his eyes. 

They snapped all the way open with surprise when he realized he was staring straight into Loki’s still-sleeping face. 

Apparently, they had both turned over at some point in the night. Tony felt himself flush a little bit as he gazed at that pale face, lips parted just a bit in his sleep. He lay there, frozen, not really sure what to do, and found himself analyzing Loki’s face. He looked so calm and innocent, sleeping like this. None of that hard warrior who could kill a man with his arms tied behind his back, or the witty man he’d been exchanging quips with now and then. Just sleeping, pure and content. So close, he could feel his warm breath. That raven hair messy and just teasing the edges of his face, those high cheekbones and pretty lips that looked so soft he could just- 

Tony mentally slapped himself._ Forget it, dumbass_, he thought. He couldn’t go making things awkward with his only lifeline. This was life or death. You don’t go making life or death situations complicated like that. 

He carefully maneuvered himself up, squeezing out of the sleeping bag, trying his very hardest not to wake Loki up. Let him sleep as long as possible. The sky was a pale pink as the sun began to rise, and the fluffy clouds swirled as they were caught up in the cosmic gateways. The morning air was crisp, but it would begin to warm up soon. Tony quietly pulled on his boots and snapped on his gun holster, glancing at Loki now and then to ensure he hadn’t woken him, and then started off around the garbage heap to empty his bladder. 

After he’d done his business and zipped up, he turned around, and nearly jumped out of his skin. 

He didn’t know if he had been there the whole time and Tony hadn’t noticed in his morning drowsiness, but all of a sudden, there was a very old-looking scrapper rummaging around in the adjacent pile. His hair was silver and white, he had a white mustache, and a pair of dark-lensed glasses over his eyes. He had to be pushing 80 or 90, hunched over and hobbling around, covered in scuffs and dirt and wearing ratty clothes. He glanced up, expression good-humored, and called over, “Good morning, young man!” 

Tony blinked, feeling quite stunned at the moment. “Uhh, morning?” He dropped his voice to a harsh whisper, “JARVIS, why the_ hell _did you let him get so close?” 

“_He did not register as a threat, sir_.” 

“He didn’t- what? JARVIS, the Grandmaster could be paying ANYONE to find us!” 

“_My apologies, sir. I will raise my threat registry level settings._” 

Tony shook his head. He didn’t understand how this could have happened. JARVIS’s threat registry should have already included this man. What could have happened? Some sort of glitch? He’d have to pour over the logs later. 

“What are you doing out here this far from the city, old man?” Tony asked, on edge. He really didn’t want to have to kill a seemingly kind old man, but he would if he had to. Or wake Loki up to do it. 

“I could ask you and your boyfriend over there the same thing.” The old man nodded towards their campsite as he shuffled along closer to it. 

“He’s- he’s _not _my boyfriend-” 

“Say, you gonna finish off those bones?” The old man pointed to the granope bones stacked on the makeshift bench, some still with a few chunks of flesh left on them. 

“Uhhh, no, but they’ve been out all night-” 

But the old man was already shuffling towards the pile of bones, seeming not to be bothered. Tony blinked in confusion and followed him. 

As he watched the old man bend down to pluck a meaty bone, waving away the few insects that had found them, Tony spoke up, “I can give you preserved food if you need supplies...? I have jerky and cheese-” 

“Oh, I have plenty, thank you.” The man began gnawing on the bone, pulling it out of his mouth to scrutinize it now and then. 

“I-… alright.” 

Holding the bone in one hand, the old man let go with his other hand and went to reach into his coat. Tony tensed and instinctively put a hand to his gun, ready to whip it out if the old man were to produce a weapon. 

He relaxed, however, when he saw the old man pull out what appeared to be a metal flower. It glinted in the sunlight, its petals seemingly made with colorful glass fragments. 

“I scour the world looking for beautiful materials, you know.” The man explained, holding out the flower. “Shiny materials to make flowers. They remind me of home.” 

“That’s... very nice.” Tony blinked. 

The old man held the flower out more insistently, “A gift, to give your lover.” He nodded at the sleeping Loki. “As thanks for the bones.” 

“He’s not my- oh... whatever.” Tony sighed, taking the flower. It was clear that this was simply a kooky old man, nothing to worry about. “Thanks. Enjoy, uh... enjoy your bones.” He shook his head, leaving the old man to it, heading back over to the sleeping bags. He stepped over to Loki’s side, and nudged him with his foot. 

Loki groaned in his sleep. 

“Wake up, sunshine. Let me tell you something, I’ve been up since the crack of dawn.” Tony said mockingly. “If the early bird gets the worm, you know what Alec Baldwin gets? The early bird!” 

“Who the fuck is Alec Baldwin...” Loki grumbled, slowly opening his eyes and yawning. 

“No idea. But we should really get moving if we wanna make any headway today.” Tony stretched, spine cracking a bit. “The further we get from Sakaar City, the better.” 

Loki sighed wearily, rubbing his eyes and forcing himself to sit up. As the bleariness cleared, Loki noticed the old man with his pile of bones and blinked. He shot Tony a questioning look. 

Tony shrugged, and tossed him the metal flower. “For you, lover.” With that, he turned and headed over to get some water. 

Loki blinked, staring down at the metal flower on his lap, confusion at maximum capacity. 

“JARVIS, we all packed and ready?” Tony asked, walking up to the Iron Man, which seemed to have been packed up overnight. The hot plate missing, likely stowed away. DUM-E was doing his weird little morning dance he liked to do, bobbing his arm up and down. Tony never did figure out why he did that. 

_"Just the sleeping bags left, sir._” JARVIS responded. 

Loki rolled out of bed and ran his hand through his choppy hair, reaching over to pull on his boots. He felt strangely numb this morning, his aches nothing more than a dull throb. He wondered if the painkillers were still working this much later. It had been very nice as he was falling asleep last night, the ever-present pain disappearing in peaceful bliss as he drifted off to the sound of Tony’s steady breathing. It even eased the worry he'd felt following his encounter with the bounty hunters.

After a few sips of water, Tony came over and started rolling up the sleeping bags as Loki snapped his holsters back on, securing the buckles around his thighs. Tony tossed Loki the second sleeping bag and the pair of them slung their satchels over their shoulders before bringing the rolled bags over to secure to the Iron Man’s back. DUM-E rolled over to them, whirring with readiness for another fun day of travel with his humans. 

As they readied to head out, Tony called over, "You gonna be alright, old man?” 

The old man seemed to have stowed the bones away in his massive backpack, and was now back to rummaging through the garbage heap. “Oh yes, thank you, young man. Have a lovely trip!” 

“Uh, yeah... you too.” Tony shook his head and turned away, and the group started off once again. 

When they had gotten far enough away, Loki asked, “Who is that guy?” 

“No idea.” Tony shrugged. “He makes metal flowers. He’s the metal flower guy.” 

“Huh.” Loki lifted the metal flower in his hand up to gaze at it closer. “Well... it _is _actually very well crafted.” He noted the smooth silver swoops of the stem and the pearlescent inlays. “And rather pretty. He certainly has practiced hands.” 

“Hey, JARVIS,” Tony thought to say, “scan that thing for trackers.” 

“_The flower is inert, sir. Nothing suspicious_.” JARVIS reported. “_Simply a bauble._” 

If he was honest, Tony wasn’t entirely sure he trusted JARVIS on that at the moment after his failure of judgement earlier. He vaguely wondered if the old man had some kind of strange effect on machines. “Maybe we can sell it when we stop in a town.” He said absent-mindedly. 

Loki gazed into the colorful glass petals for a long time as they walked, before finally stowing it away in his satchel. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah that’s right, we’re pretending Sakaar hasn’t invented heated sleeping bags so we can say ‘AND THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED’.


	6. Fire Pink

Their second and third days of travel went by rather uneventfully. Which, both Tony and Loki could agree, was a good thing. 

The first time the occasional drone drifted by, Tony had switched on the sound dampening field, and Loki told everyone to get behind him. Huddled close, Loki had placed his hands on his temples again, face of deep concentration as they walked slowly. Tony felt that weird prickling sensation again, and wondered, briefly, what was causing it exactly. He focused on the drone, filled with anxiety, examining it through all his sensors to search for signs that the thing may have seen them. But all it did was meander along, entirely oblivious. It never turned in their direction to scan closer, and Tony didn’t see any alerts or responses from it through the digital realm. He'd seen the behavior of a drone that found something worth looking at, and this drone wasn’t acting like that. He remained cautious of course, but Tony decided they’d cleared it. 

Left Loki with a nosebleed again, though. That couldn’t possibly be good. Tony wondered whether the time savings was really worth it. He also wondered what exactly was different about this method as compared to the other technomancy he’d seen from the man that affected him in this way. One would think sending a massive energy burst through one’s body or ripping a cybernetic heart out of a man would be more strenuous than something seemingly simple like data manipulation; but then, Tony didn’t really understand how he was doing it at the atomic level. He fully intended to interrogate Loki about it at some point. 

There were quite a few small settlements and the occasional larger town scattered along the outskirts of Sakaar City. From groups of families who carved out a little space for themselves using the trash around them, to the towns that grew from similar origins. Towns that fed off the trade routes between Sakaar City and the other major cities across the planet. Tony recognized the area, he’d been all across the outer limits of Sakaar City. So he knew when they needed to take a detour along Loki’s path to avoid settlements. He insisted they take a wide arc, as scrappers would be out in droves near the cities. Good scrappers like Tony went far to look for unadulterated piles, but casual scrappers and hobbyists tended to stick closer to civilization. It was a lot safer to do so. Less likely to run into ravagers or Direwolves, easy to go back home at night so as to avoid having to camp. Although that meant the piles near civilization were overpicked, the cosmic gateways were constantly replenishing, so there were always gems to be found. 

On that second day, Loki had gone hunting for their lunch. It only took him about 20 minutes, and he brought back the carcass of a temole; a sort of fat, hairless, beaver-like creature that made nests in the garbage. This was a difficult creature to find, considering it could dig through garbage like it was swimming through water. Tony was impressed, and wondered how he’d managed it. Loki had brought back a small cluster of its little, soft eggs, as well; not the most appetizing type of egg out there, but it was sustenance. Tony fried them up on the hot plate and they forced themselves to swallow the swampy-tasting, salty things. Both of them gagged, but managed to keep it down. 

The meat from the temole was better. The flesh was fatty and oily, but mild and fragrant, with just a hint of a coppery aftertaste. Loki, as promised, had Tony help him cook it so he could get a sense of the basics. Tony had greatly enjoyed learning something new, and Loki was a patient teacher. After they’d eaten their fill, Tony found some material that he could use as a bag, sanitized it and packed up the remaining meat they hadn’t cooked so they could have it for dinner. Though they’d have to cook the hell out of it after leaving it unfrozen this long, it was one less hunting trip for Loki. He also stored the excess fat from the animal, imagining it could have some crafting uses. 

Much of their travelling was spent in silence, but they had their exchanges now and then. Sometimes Loki would ask him about some of the projects he’d seen back in the workshop, and Tony was more than happy to be launched into long-winded explanations of them. Every time he found himself rambling, he glanced at Loki to look for the usual annoyed disinterest he saw in everyone he ever rambled at; but he didn’t find that in those green eyes. He seemed genuinely interested, and kept up with ease. He supposed that made sense; Loki _ was _a technomancer. Technomancers understood technology. It was in the name. 

When they stopped to rest for a bit later on, Tony took the opportunity to teach Loki how to shoot the handgun he’d give him. He explained all the different components in detail, what they did. The sights, the settings on the laser power from fine to wide, the stun setting. How much you could fire the weapon before it overheated. Showed him how to switch out the energy cartridge; not something you did often, since it replenished its own energy when left in the sun, but useful knowledge in a heavy firefight. 

When he was showing Loki the proper stance for holding the gun, how to aim and the like, he found himself standing behind the man and physically moving his arms and nudging his legs to demonstrate the position. This, of course, meant very close bodily proximity. He could feel the man’s body heat, hear his gentle breathing. Those green eyes turned on him with an odd look within, something akin to playful. Tony was starting to wonder if Loki was messing with him when he got into the wrong posture several times and Tony had to correct him. But maybe he was imagining it. 

On the other side of things, Loki was absolutely playing with him. Because when Tony stood behind him, and his breath tickled his neck, he did enjoy feeling the shiver that ran up his spine as a result. Those strong and sure hands guiding him. Just because he didn’t trust Stark, didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun with him. 

At the end of it, when he’d had his fill of amusement, Loki was shooting the targets with his eyes closed. The lasers were energy; he could feel them with his senses, and he had no problem aiming with precision. Really all he needed to learn was how to work the gun, which he technically could have figured out himself by exploring it with his technomancy, but he didn’t tell Tony that. 

Loki could tell that Tony felt awkward each of the nights they climbed into the sleeping bag together. The discomfort radiated off of him, and Loki wondered why. Was this something the man simply wasn’t used to, or did it have something to do with him? Loki was fairly used to waking up in the beds of people he didn’t particularly care for, or having to cuddle up with other prisoners against the cold in that first year before he got his own cell. Either way, it didn’t make him feel uncomfortable. It was warm, and Stark didn’t bother him, other than the occasional painful kneeing when he was asleep. It was cozy. 

JARVIS kept them updated on the communication traffic regarding the search for Loki. It was only gaining in furiosity, it seemed. They picked up less secure channels of amateur bounty hunters and scrappers as they communicated about their own searches. Tony was amused when he heard some of them claiming they’d picked up their trail, when they were actually going in quite the opposite direction. 

It was the people that Tony wasn’t hearing from that concerned him. Working in the underworld meant he’d met and heard about a lot of unsavory characters, and he knew exactly what was on their trail. JARVIS had informed him of the bounty. With that kind of money at stake? The _ gods _of bounty hunting were no doubt sniffing for their blood. And they would not leave signs of their coming. Tony had no way of knowing if any of them had their scent. Any of them could appear at any moment. It put him on edge, a constant underlying anxiety. Looking behind his shoulder, watching the shadows, jumping at the slightest sound. It didn’t matter how far JARVIS could detect someone approaching, Tony would remain fearful. 

He was a bit suspicious of JARVIS’s sensors after that encounter with the crazy old man, anyway. He’d poured over the logs, but couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. The old man simply hadn’t appeared as a threat to JARVIS. There was no reason for it. He couldn’t wrap his brain around it. JARVIS hadn’t failed them when it came to avoiding scrappers afterwards; but all it took was one deadly assassin not registering as a threat to slip through the AI’s cloak and gut them. 

Still, as was mentioned, the second and third days went by uneventfully. They hadn’t run into any of the bounty hunters Tony feared, no sign of Direwolves, and the scrappers were easily avoided thanks to the thermographics. They had to sneak by several drones, but Loki handled them all with ease, albeit a bloody nose. 

On that third morning, when they woke up in the early hours, Tony decided they were both due for a change of clothes. 

“We smell like a mewrat larder.” Tony said, scrunching his nose. 

“Could be worse.” Loki said. He seemed reluctant to relinquish his current outfit. 

“But it doesn’t need to be.” Tony argued. “We have spares, and JARVIS can wash our clothes as we go.” 

In the end, Tony won that one, and he tossed Loki a stack of his too-tight clothes. Loki sighed, and began stripping his clothes off and handing them to the Iron Man. He pulled on the borrowed pants; they fit, but the legs were a tad too short, stopping at his ankles. Didn’t really matter, considering he wore knee-high boots. 

Before he pulled on the shirt, Loki thought to address the days-old bandages around his ribs. They were mostly better now (or perhaps the rest of his body was so sore that he didn’t notice his ribs as much anymore), the pain having dulled to a light throb, and the bandages were getting itchy. He searched for the edge of the bandage and began to peel it off. He winced when it pulled at his skin, having been stuck there for so long. The skin underneath was macerated and tender. He really should have changed it out days ago. He sighed, and reached for the t-shirt he’d been given. 

Tony had just pulled on his own pants when he glanced back and _oh gods damn Loki in a very fitted band t-shirt_\- 

Tony cleared his throat, “How’s the fit? I can give you something bigger if you want.” 

Loki blinked up at him as he fastened his boots. “This is fine.” 

_ Damn right its fine_, Tony barely forced himself not to grumble, moving to pull on his own shirt. 

Although he usually paid no attention to the little robot, this morning Loki noticed DUM-E as he bounced his arm up and down. He raised an eyebrow as he finished with his boot and stood up, glancing at Tony quizzically. “What’s it doing?” 

“Hm? Oh, that’s his morning dance.” 

“...testing its motion calibration upon reboot...?” 

“Nah, no idea why he does it.” Tony shrugged, fastening his gun holster to this fresh pair of pants. “It’s just his thing.” 

DUM-E seemed to notice that Loki was looking at him, and whirred excitedly. Loki only blinked, however, and glanced away to start walking forward. “Come on, then. Let’s get a move on.” 

As they walked, the Iron Man used some spare water they had filtered through the purifier last night to soak their clothes before wringing them out. It was no power cleaner, but it would take the edge off the stink at least. The clothes were hung over the storage bags in the air to dry. If they hadn’t dried all the way by nightfall, Tony figured they could put them near the hotplate. 

The day wore on like the past two. It was particularly sunny today, but there was a gentle breeze that kept the tormenting heat at bay. The second drone of the day took them by surprise, as there seemed to be some strange interference in this area that had messed with their sensor net; but Loki managed to put up their cloak of sensor invisibility just in time. The thing seemed to scan extra long over them, and Tony felt his heart pounding as he wondered if Loki hadn’t been able to perfect the cloak in so little time. However, it seemed to decide nothing was amiss eventually, and continued on its way. Tony breathed out a long sigh of relief, trying to calm his shaken nerves, finding that he had been trembling. 

Loki’s nose gushed for an especially long time after that. 

Later on, when they had decided to take a short break to rest up, Tony found himself falling into his scavenging ways when he noticed something shiny in the garbage pile. Grabbing one interesting-looking thing lead to spotting another, and another... and before long, he realized he’d been at it for 30 minutes. He walked back to the Iron Man suit, sweaty and scuffed up, and dropped his pile of finds at its feet, glancing around in confusion. “Where’s Loki?” 

“_Just around the corner, sir._” 

Tony blinked, and started off in the direction JARVIS indicated. He rounded the garbage pile, eye out for the pale man, when he finally spotted him. Loki was sitting cross-legged up high on some object resting near the top of the garbage heap. His back was straight, eyes were closed, and his face was raised to the sky. Tony felt something warm inside of him. Loki looked more peaceful than he ever had when he was awake, like he was soaking up the sunrays. 

So, rather than calling for him, Tony decided not to bother him. Let him enjoy this moment of peace in this newfound freedom. Tony turned quietly, and headed back, leaving Loki to it. 

Loki hadn’t felt the sun like this in longer than he could remember. The warm energy, the photons dancing across his skin. He’d been looking through the filter of a window for over 10 years. He was going to drink this in every chance he got. 

As the sun warmed him and his mind went fuzzy with the lazy heat, his thoughts drifted to his current situation. To Tony, specifically. It was almost strange, how easy they fell in together; he wondered if that was just how it was when people got shoved into a life or death situation together, or if it was simply their compatibility. He was leaning towards both. Tony was easy to get along with for him, intelligent and quick-witted as he was. He hadn’t exchanged sharp quips like this with anyone in a long time, considering he’d been surrounded by nothing but meatbrains and buzzheads since he arrived in Sakaar City. 

All that did, however, was make it harder to remember he wasn’t supposed to trust the man. Oh, it was so easy to forget. Tony had this way of speaking and behaving that made it easy to fall in with him, to subconsciously register him as safe and trustworthy. He didn’t have a dangerous aura about him; quite the contrary, it was easy to relax in his presence. In the moments Loki had to slap himself mentally, to remind himself that he knew nothing about this man and that he could have ill intentions underneath the charade, he wondered if Tony put on that easy-going aura intentionally. That he was somehow tricking Loki’s better instincts. 

But a big part of him wanted to believe he could trust his instincts. That the reason he felt safe around Tony was because he _ was _safe. 

Maybe it was naïve of him. It wasn’t like he’d been out in the world, interacting with people outside the Palace. Maybe he just didn’t have good instincts for this sort of thing. Untested as they were. He knew the kinds of people that were friends with the Grandmaster. He knew the kinds of people he was going to fight in the Arena. He even knew, to an extent, the kinds of people that made up the Palace guardsmen. What he didn’t know was the shady types of the Sakaaran underworld. The only sort of desperation he knew was his own, and the other Arena slaves. He didn’t know the desperation of the poor districts of Sakaar City, of lowly scrappers, of those who wouldn’t be welcome in the Palace. He didn’t know the desperation of Tony Stark. 

But he was going to have to learn. He was going to have to observe and learn to understand the types of people that lived out here beyond the Palace. Because he was not so foolish as to think he should rely on Stark to lead the way when they inevitably ran into civilization. And he had enough forethought to make it a goal to understand the backgrounds of those like Stark, so that, perhaps, they might help him understand the man’s motives. 

Loki sighed, opening his eyes and squinting against the sun as he unfurled his legs. He hopped down from the object he had been sitting on and picked his descent from the garbage pile carefully. Hard as it was, he really needed to work on consciously keeping Stark at arm’s length. He couldn’t let his guard down. Not for a moment. He’d survived too much to throw it away by trusting in the wrong person. 

“So... have you been through this area before?” Loki asked as they walked. He really just needed something to take his mind off the aching of his body. All this walking without much of a break, alongside sleeping basically on the ground, was absolutely creating issues. Nothing Stark hadn’t warned about, but every hour he thought about popping some more painkillers. He really didn’t need to form a dependency; who knew where they might end up, when they might run out. He didn’t need to deal with withdrawal out here. He needed a clear head at all times. 

“Oh, yeah.” Tony confirmed. “I’ve been all over. Even beyond Sakaar City’s garbage wastes.” 

“How far?” 

“Well, never past the Scorched Lands down south. Made it halfway to the Súr Valleys once, but there’s just no real need to go too far as a scrapper, considering the gateways.” 

“Never to the Riverlands?” 

“Nah, way too far out of my comfort zone. Why? Someplace you wanna visit?” Tony couldn’t think of why he’d be interested in a place like the Riverlands. The acidic waters washed away useful materials, and the muddy grounds made it hard to build anything sturdy. Not many people lived there, as far as he knew. 

Loki blinked for a moment. “Just making conversation.” He said, a bit of a clipped tone to his voice. 

“I mean, if we’re heading in this straight direction the whole time, and my mental map is accurate... it’d be a bit of a detour, but we could-” 

“No, I-” Loki suddenly froze in his tracks. 

“What is it?” Tony asked. 

“_Sir_-!” JARVIS began. 

“Get down!” Loki shouted, and shoved Tony aside just as a bullet shot past where the man’s head had been a nanosecond before. Tony fell on his side with a surprised grunt, and Loki rolled forward and landed on his hands and toes gracefully. 

Both of them scrambled to their feet, and ran for cover as another bullet, actual bullets, hit the garbage behind them when Loki used his technomancy to deflect it. They heard something pop nearby, and the Iron Man suit, which had been rushing over to reach Tony, suddenly fell to the ground, twitching. The bags falling with a thud. DUM-E seemed to be frozen in place. 

“JARVIS!” Tony yelled. 

“_EMP attack, sir!_” Came the voice in his head, seemingly unable to emit from the Iron Man suit. 

“Aw, shit...” Tony cursed, “I’ve been meaning to look into shielding against EMP-” 

“Stark-!” 

A massive explosion of energy ripped both of them off their feet and sent them flying. Tony landed on his back, and yelped when Loki landed bodily on him, his spine connecting with Tony’s chest. They lay there for a second in shock. Tony’s ears were ringing, and he couldn’t see from his cybernetic eye. 

Loki struggled to push himself up, wincing, and glanced down at Tony under him. “See? That’s how it feels.” He grumbled. 

Tony was too busy panicking from the fact that he couldn’t move his arm, the world a fuzzy blur around him as he breathed heavily, struggling to get his twitching body under control, pressing his hand to his right temple plate that burned around the edges. Loki’s weight left him as the man rolled off and ran towards the noisy explosions and gunfire. 

“Loki-!” Tony ground out, trying hard to sit up, but his body was screaming in pain and his nerves were spasming. He looked down at his mechanical prosthetic, willing it to move, but it just lay there like dead weight. 

Electricity shot all around Loki as he ran forward, the invisible magnetic bubble around him flaring up with corona when the metal bullets hit it and bounced off harmlessly away from him. He kept Tony’s location in his peripheral, willing the bullets to deflect far from him. “Come out, coward!” Loki snarled, ripping out his daggers. He couldn’t get a location on the shooter, something was interfering with his electrical senses. 

A voice laughed, and suddenly Loki was hit hard from behind and sent tumbling, rolling onto his back. He looked up wildly; before him stood a very tall, muscular woman with ash-gray skin, short pink hair and a sadistic grin. Her pink eyes glowed with predatorial fire. “Are indirect means of destroying one’s enemy truly cowardice, or intelligent strategy? You of all people should know.” Her voice was gruff and confident as she trained her massive gun on him. 

Loki couldn’t help but smirk at that statement. “Fair point.” Before she could react, he reached out with his technomancy and crushed her gun. She started, then reached down and grabbed something from her belt as Loki rolled to a crouch. Out came a massive plasma blade, glowing pink, far larger than Loki’s. She swung it at him, but Loki brought up his own smaller green blade to block. The two blades met with a searing sound and colorful plasma spray. 

The hunter smirked, pressing forward with her blade. Loki struggled to hold her back with his own, gritting his teeth, muscles straining. “Cute.” She said. She didn’t even look like she was breaking a sweat. 

Tony struggled to sit up, his nerves on fire, and squinted through the pain at the standoff. His eyes bugged out when he recognized the blurry form, “Oh shit, Loki! Be careful!” He shouted. “That’s Vida, one of the best bounty hunters in the sector!” 

Loki’s breath hissed out with effort as he held back the blade with his own. “Pleasure to meet you.” He ground out. 

“Likewise.” Vida smirked. “Never thought I’d get the chance to fight the Grand Champion.” 

Loki suddenly pulled back and ducked to the side, causing Vida to stumble forward. He lashed out with his blades, but the bounty hunter dodged, and slashed with her own blade. Loki ducked, and the pair entered a continuous back and forth dance, blades creating light ribbons in the air, pink and green, as they each sought the kill. Each moved with fluid grace and finesse; something expected of Loki at this point, but a surprise from the giant Vida. Twisting their bodies and leaping to dodge, slashing out at just the right time. 

It had been so long since Loki found himself well-matched against an opponent who fought like himself. It was exhilarating, and terrifying. So long since he’d been kept on his toes like this. Gotten to dance like this. Though the adrenaline set in and he fought for his life, Loki felt… _ alive _. More alive than he had in a long time. 

Tony dragged himself over to the downed Iron Man suit, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears and the terror in his chest. He counted himself thankful that his cybernetic heart was shielded from outside tampering, or he would be in cardiac arrest right now. Still, his prosthetic arm, eye and arc reactor were all down for the count, along with his laser gun. That freaked him out more than anything, feeling so helpless like this. Losing everything that gave him an advantage. “JARVIS? Status?” 

“_Trying to reboot, sir_.” 

“Well, hurry! Loki needs our help!” 

“_You may need to do it manually, sir. The suit is not accepting my commands._” 

“Shit.” Tony groaned. He pulled out a small screwdriver, trying to position himself to get leverage on the suit helmet with only one hand. “This is gonna take too long…” 

“Can we hurry this up?” Vida sighed as she dodged another of Loki’s attacks. “I told my girlfriend I’d take her to the nicest restaurant in the city with the bounty money.” 

Their blades met again, but this time she lunged out with a kick, leaving Loki off balance, and he fell with a sharp grunt when she forced him back. He rolled before she could pin him, digging his toes into the sand and launching himself away. He got to his feet, further away from her now, dropping one dagger and grabbing at the laser gun in his holster as he moved. 

“What’s your girlfriend’s name?” He asked, the gun trained on her, as he straightened up. He used this moment of distraction to send a burst of energy through his gun, working on rebooting the electronics that had been scrambled in the EMP attack in an instant. 

“Tama.” Vida responded without batting an eyelash, holding up her blade defensively. She hit a button and a second ray of pink light expanded out from the handle, turning the weapon into a long, two-bladed sword. 

“Is she a bounty hunter too?” 

Vida laughed, “She’s an ARtist.” 

“Oh? That Tama?” 

“Art fan?” 

“I’m a hobbyist myself.” 

“Are you seriously chatting it up with the person trying to kill us?!” Tony yelled, flabbergasted, glancing up from where he was pulling wires out of the Iron Man’s helmet best he could with only one shaky hand. “Shoot her already!” 

Loki shrugged and shot his gun. The laser went straight for Vida’s head, but she slashed at it just in time, the plasma blade absorbing the energy. He shot several more times but she caught each one with her blade, spinning it in her hands like a staff, creating a pink, glowing helicopter effect. The last shot deflected back at Loki, slicing him in the thigh and making him hiss with pain. 

“Impressive.” He ground out. “Who did you train with?” 

“I’m a natural.” Vida grinned, and started advancing on him threateningly. 

Loki backed up, searching desperately with his technomancy, looking for something to latch onto. But those senses were still floating, disrupted and in disarray, and Loki realized Vida didn’t actually have any cybernetic parts he could rip out. 

“Clever, coming here with no cybernetics.” 

“I’ve seen you rip out enough cybernetic eyeballs to leave my sight piece at home.” She grinned. 

Vida launched forward and Loki had to leap to avoid her double blade. He kept his momentum, running, sending laser fire out behind him as he dashed for the far garbage heap. 

“Now who’s the coward?” Vida laughed, and chased after him, catching the lasers with her blades. 

Loki leapt up from solid-seeming item to solid-seeming item, remaining light on his feet. He scaled the garbage pile, aiming for the very top. He nearly reached it, just one more leap away; but suddenly, a hand grabbed his ankle and pulled him down. He slammed into the garbage with a pained grunt, his dagger and gun flew from his grip and tumbled down, and he slid a short ways down the pile on his back and found himself under Vida, who now had a muscular hand on his throat. She tossed her sword from the garbage pile and added her second free hand to his throat. 

Loki struggled in her strong grip, and she chuckled. “You know how easily I could snap this scrawny little neck of yours?” She began to squeeze, and Loki gasped, clawing at her thick-skinned arm. She leaned down, voice soft and dripping with poison. “It’s almost a shame the Grandmaster wants you alive.” 

She squeezed harder and Loki thrashed, desperately trying to pull in air, but it was no use. Her grip was too strong, his windpipe crushed and his neck was starting to bruise. He felt his face turning red, panic flooding his veins. 

All of a sudden, a zapping sound rang out and, before she realized what was happening, Vida was shot through the shoulder. She howled in pain, grabbing at her shoulder instinctively. Loki quickly recovered and took her moment of distraction to launch upward, his head connecting with her face, and then kicked her square in the torso as hard as he could. She was sent sprawling backwards, sliding down the garbage heap on her back and hitting the ground with a thud and a pained grunt. 

Loki flung himself off his perch, sliding down like a surfer, grabbing his fallen weapons before leaping and landing a hard kick to Vida’s abdomen, causing her to double up in pain. He pinned her down with his knee and held his dagger to her neck, and his gun to her head. 

Behind him, Tony was walking forward with his own (dead) handgun trained on her, the Iron Man stomping beside him, weapons raised and smoking from where they’d already shot. His cybernetics were still down, but he fought through it, holding the gun in his natural arm for the sake of appearance, feeling quite confident with his suit backing him up. 

Vida seemed to recognize she was beaten, gritting her teeth against the pain flashing through her body, her bleeding shoulder and blood-gushing nose. She fixed her pink gaze on Loki’s frazzled green, her lips slowly spreading to a goading smirk. “Do it, 'God of Chaos’. Do what you do every week.” 

Loki stared down at her for a long moment. Eyes analyzing, deciding. Finally, he lifted his blade, sheathing it and putting it in his hilt, getting to his feet. His gun was still trained on her, however, when he said, “If you come for me again, I will not hesitate to kill you.” His voice was hoarse from the crushing of his windpipe. 

Vida looked mildly surprised, and somewhat annoyed, as she cautiously pushed herself up into a sitting position, favoring her wounded arm and gritting her teeth against the pain that wracked her battered body. “Are you sparing me because I’m a woman?” She growled lightly, seeming quite offended by the idea. 

Loki rolled his eyes. “I’ve killed _many _female warriors in the Arena. That has nothing to do with it.” 

“Then why?” 

“Yeah, why?” Tony added, voice nervous. He really didn’t understand why the man would take such a risk. He should just kill her and be done with it. “Loki, we can’t afford to-” 

“I’m sparing you because I like you.” Loki rasped, slight smirk crossing his face. 

Vida raised an eyebrow, annoyance replaced by puzzlement. She slowly got to her feet, grabbing her blade from the ground as she went, and sheathed it before snapping it onto her belt. The guns stayed trained on her as she moved, and she never took her eyes from them. “You’re... exactly like I expected, if I’m honest.” Her lips formed an amused smile. 

“Oh?” 

“I’ve been studying your moves.” Vida explained with a grin. “You fight with your head. You like to keep people on their toes.” She tossed her head a little to flip her hair out of her eyes, seeming unbothered by the blood that seeped from her nose and stained her teeth. “I’d like to think we’d be friends, in a different scenario.” 

Loki tilted his head, “Perhaps we will be, one day.” 

“Alright, as touching as this is...” Tony scowled. “Are we seriously letting her go, Loki?” 

Loki nodded, not looking away from Vida. 

“I suppose I owe you my life, Champion.” Vida dipped her head. 

“Go on your way, and we’ll consider it repaid.” 

Vida made a motion like tipping a hat, turned and, pressing a hand to her bleeding shoulder, nose still dripping blood, started heading away. 

Tony and Loki watched the tall woman go, pink hair ignited by the setting sun. They kept their guns trained on her until she was out of sight, and JARVIS confirmed she was gone. 

As soon as he did, Tony turned on Loki. “What the hell are you thinking?” He hissed incredulously. “She’s one of the most dangerous bounty hunters in the sector! Even if she doesn’t come back and cut our throats while we’re sleeping, she might tell someone else where to find us!” 

“She won’t.” Loki said. 

“How the fuck do you know?” Anxiety over the idea was thrumming through his veins. He should have just had JARVIS shoot her against Loki’s wishes. He knew way better than Loki on this sort of thing. You couldn’t just go trusting random people, appealing to their humanity; especially bounty hunters. They had no souls. 

Loki shrugged, then glanced down at Tony’s prosthetic arm. He reached out and took it, lifting it up. “Still down?” 

Tony grit his teeth, gazing down at his limp arm in Loki’s hands. “Yeah. That blast really fucked it all up. I’m gonna have to implement some EMP shielding. Never thought I’d have to, not the most common weapon choice...” 

Loki traced the lines of the arm with his fingers, and suddenly Tony found all his worries melting away as he watched the gentle movement. He really wished his arm was functioning, so he could feel the touch to the slight degree the arm’s sensors allowed. Better yet, he wished this was happening to his real arm right now... 

Suddenly, Tony felt a charge go through him, and he jolted as all of his systems came online at once. The world emerging from darkness in his cybernetic eye in an instant, flashing warnings about a power surge, his arm suddenly receiving feedback, his arc reactor flaring to life. His senses were overwhelmed, and he grabbed at his temple plate with a wince, stumbling back. 

“Sorry, suppose I should have warned you.” Loki winced, hands on Tony’s shoulders to keep him steady. 

“H-how... how did you do that?” He stammered, looking up at Loki wide-eyed as his eye went through the reboot test steps, feedback codes popping up in the AR-Scape everywhere. 

Loki smirked slightly. “Same way I do any of it.” 

“You have _got _to let me scan you sometime.” Tony felt a surge of excitable energy. “That level of control, that could... if I could emulate that...” 

Loki frowned suddenly, letting go of his shoulders and backing away, strange look in his eyes. 

“What?” Tony blinked. 

“So that’s it?” Loki scowled. “You want to learn about my powers so you can use them to make weapons?” 

“I... what? No!” 

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Loki bared his teeth. “Pretend to be my friend until I let my guard down so you can... you can _scan _me-” 

Tony felt a sinking feeling in his stomach and he stepped forward, arms up. “No, no I swear to the gods, Loki, that’s not what’s happening!” 

Loki narrowed his eyes distrustfully, a hand resting on his dagger hilt. “Then why did you want to come?” 

“I told you!” 

“You really expect me to believe you want to help me, a random stranger, out of the goodness of your heart?” 

Tony felt himself flush. Well, shit. It seemed Loki wasn’t as naïve as he thought. “Alright, fair...” 

Loki strode forward and grabbed Tony by the shirt, glaring into his eyes. “Why are you here, Stark?” He growled. 

“Look, yeah, so... I embellished a little.” Tony stammered, thoughts racing, tensing up under Loki’s grip. Should he just tell the truth? Would he even believe him at this point? No... he needed to stick to his story. He needed to keep this simple. “I didn’t lie, though, I swear. Nothing nefarious up my sleeve. I just really wanna know what this Eden is.” 

“Why? So you can pillage its tech?” Loki spat, his breath bursting across Tony’s face, clenching his shirt tighter. 

“Get inspired by it! I-if they consent, of course! I’m not gonna steal anything. It’s like if... if you went to an art museum to get inspired!” The idea for the comparison sparked in his head. Loki’s eyes seemed to flash with thought at it, being something he understood. “And again, the idea of finding a hidden city is just... that’s too cool of an idea to pass up on. Do you know how boring scrapping day in and day out gets? Consider it a, ah... dangerous vacation?” 

Loki still glared at him suspiciously, not yet releasing him. 

“Okay, um, how about this...” Tony thought fast. “How about no scans, ever?” 

“Ever?” 

“You’d know if I scanned you, right?” 

“Right...” 

“So if I promise I won’t scan you, and if you felt me scan you, then you can... I don’t know, do whatever you’d do about it.” 

“Probably kill you.” Loki said coldly. 

Tony winced. “Alright, that’s fine, because I have no intention of breaking that promise.” 

Loki gazed at him thoughtfully, expression calming, seeming to debate internally with himself. Tony was worried he might decide to go off on his own. What would he do then? Would he tell Loki the truth... and if he did, would he even let a liar come along with him? There would absolutely be no trust after that. 

Thankfully, Loki only sighed exasperatedly, releasing Tony’s shirt and backing away. He turned to go fetch his other dagger from the ground. It had heated up the sand under it, which was melting in an array of colors. He picked it up, gazing into the green glow. 

“So, ah... we’re good then?” Tony asked, swallowing. 

Loki turned and pointed the dagger towards Tony. “For now. But if I have even the slightest inkling that you will or ever intended to betray me, if I find you’ve lied to me, it will not matter that you were the one who released me from my slavery.” 

“Right, yes. I get it.” Tony tugged at his shirt collar. He realized he’d had good instinct, not informing Loki that he had lied to him. He knew now that he could never, ever let it slip to Loki that he had been lying, that he had initially intended to betray him. His life was at stake, and not just if Loki decided to leave him to fend for himself. 

Unbeknownst to him, Loki was only threatening him under the assumption that Tony may be trying to exploit him and his people. That that specifically was what he was lying about. If only more people understood the dangers of making assumptions. 

“Hey, what about medical scans?” Tony asked, upon thinking for a moment. 

Loki narrowed his eyes again. 

“Nothing to do with your powers! It couldn’t get a reading on anything unless you were using them anyway, I think. But what if you were hurt and JARVIS needed to figure out what was wrong?” 

“Can’t you just look with your eyes?” 

“I mean, I’m not a doctor. Like, your throat looks pretty fucked up right now. Would you let JARVIS scan to reveal the damage?” 

“My throat is fine.” 

“Okay, okay... but-” 

Loki sighed exasperatedly. “If I’m dying? Fine. If you ask first and I say yes? Fine. But I will see every speck of data you gather, and if any of it has anything to do with my powers...” 

“Got it, okay, we can work with that.” 

“And you will delete it immediately.” 

“Deal.” He let out a sigh of relief, the stress thrumming through his veins after all recent events slowly dissipating. “JARVIS, how’s the suit?” 

“_I am correcting all errors now, sir. It is almost fully functioning._” 

Loki pinched his nose bridge tiredly, sheathing his second dagger and storing it away. “We should make camp. It’s been... quite a day.” 

Tony nodded. “Agreed, but we should move a little ways away, and try to stay hidden. I know you trust Vida not to rat us out, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.” 

“They’d find us either way.” 

“I know, but... doesn’t hurt to make a bit of effort.” 

Loki shrugged, glancing over at the Iron Man suit. “Why did JARVIS not detect Vida, anyway?” He asked suddenly. 

“Too far out of range when she started sniping, that must have been a seriously long-range rifle she had. And she was using some kind of weird electromagnetic scrambler.” Tony scratched the back of his head. “I guess I’ve got a lot of work to do, improving the sensors... on top of shielding everything against EMP. I’ve never had to worry about anything like this, the advanced weaponry that professional bounty hunters have access to... I guess I’m a lot less prepared than I thought.” He frowned with this realization. He always thought he had top-notch gear, that he had thought of everything, that he was safe under the blanket of his tech. It made him feel sick to realize how wrong he was. He was going to have to think hard about what other tech they might face in the future. He didn’t want to have to learn the hard way a second time. 

“I’ll help where I can.” Loki promised. “I’m not a mechanic, but I might have some insight.” 

“That would be great.” Tony glanced over, suddenly remembering something. “Hey, can you reboot DUM-E? Like you did for my parts?” 

Loki followed his gaze, noticing the little robot slumped over. He rolled his eyes and walked over, crouching down and placing a hand on DUM-E. After a moment, the little robot stirred to life, slowly raising his arm. He seemed to notice Loki, and whirred excitedly, his arm dancing up and down. Loki ignored him though, and got to his feet. “Let’s go, then. I could sleep in the sand at this point.” 

It was dark by the time they picked a suitable spot, and Tony arranged the trash around them to act as a sort of camouflage with the help of the Iron Man. Loki was right, if a bounty hunter was told where they had fought Vida, it wouldn’t be hard for them to find them here. But it made him feel better. It would help him fall asleep. 

Although he’d spent some time cleaning and patching the deflected laser shot wound on his leg, Loki was already asleep by the time Tony felt satisfied enough to go to bed. He had the second sleeping bag on top as usual, so it seemed he wasn’t upset enough with Tony to insist on sleeping separately. He took that as a good sign, as he carefully eased himself into the sleeping bag, trying his best not to wake Loki. 

He lay back and got settled, sighing out of his nose, too tired to think about everything that had happened today. His head hurt, and felt fuzzy with exhaustion. He gazed up at the stars above, the sky rather clear of clouds today, and counted them until he began to drift. He didn’t know how long he’d been at it, but all of a sudden, he was snapped out of his half-asleep daze by Loki shifting restlessly beside him. Tony turned his head to look at him. The young man’s face was contorted in distress, and his breathing was fast. His body was tensed up and trembling. He was clearly having some sort of a bad dream. 

Tony wasn’t sure what to do. Should he just leave him to get through it? Should he try to wake him up? Neither option seemed very ideal. He had a feeling Loki would be angry with him if he dared rouse him. Through his confliction, without thinking, he turned over on his side and reached up to gently rest his natural hand on the side of Loki’s face. Tony frowned at himself when he realized what he did. He really had no idea why he did this. Had this sudden urge and acted on it without thinking. 

Surprisingly, though, Loki slowly seemed to calm under his touch. Face relaxing, the raven breathed out a sigh, fast asleep. Tony blinked, not daring to take his hand away. Had it been a coincidence that Loki’s nightmare ended just then? Or had he really responded to Tony’s touch? 

As he lay there, gazing at that sleeping face and slowly let his hand drop, Tony wondered what he had been dreaming about. Loki undoubtedly had no limit to the amount of awful things he had seen in his life. Other than regularly fighting for his life in the Arena, he’d also hinted at other traumatic experiences. Which of them haunted his dreams at night? He wondered. What, in a sea of horrors, rose above the rest so as to force him to relive them in the realm of dreams? 

Soon, though, Tony’s thoughts began to scatter, becoming muddled as he slowly drifted to sleep. 

\-- 

“It’s been... it’s been _weeks_, Topaz.” 

“It’s only been a few days, sir.” 

“Well, it’s felt like... like an _eternity_.” The Grandmaster sighed, draped dramatically over his luxurious couch. “Why hasn’t there been any news, Topaz? What could have happened to my... to my little Champion?” 

“They’ve covered their trail well, sir. They’re evading the drones somehow. I also received a report about the remains of some dead bounty hunters found this morning, with plasma blade wounds matching the Grand Champion’s weapons.” Topaz explained. “It seems they’re more than capable of defending themselves.” 

“Oh, whatever are we going to do?” The Grandmaster raised his arm over his head in sorrow. “I just... I can’t live without my little Champion...” 

“You won’t have to, sir.” Topaz straightened up. “I took the liberty of calling Sakaar’s greatest bounty hunting duo to your aid.” 

“Oh?” The Grandmaster sat up, interest piqued. 

“They are here and ready to see you, sir.” 

“Let them in, let them in!” The Grandmaster waved his hands. 

When the great, golden doors opened, however, only one dark form stepped through the hallway, one shadow stretching out into the room. Her metallic skin was blue, and broken up in different shades of blue or silver where cybernetic edges met. Her head was bare of any hair, and her eyes were void black and serious. She wore a fitted leather suit and knee-high boots. Though she was small, and alone, she had an air of danger about her, a darkness that clung like a cloak. Topaz couldn’t help but stiffen a bit in her presence. 

“My lord.” The woman’s robotic, monotone voice came, and she bowed graciously. 

The Grandmaster seemed somewhat unimpressed, however. “You know, I may occasionally, uh, struggle with the common tongue, but I do believe ‘duo’ generally entails a... well, a second person.” He gestured to the blue woman. “So unless you uh... you split in two or something...” 

“My partner and I no longer work together.” Nebula cut in, eyes fierce. Though she tried to hide her emotion, her rage seeped from those black eyes like ink from a broken pen. “But I alone am still the best bounty hunter on Sakaar. I _will _find your Champion for you. It is only a matter of time. _I am inevitable_.” 

A grin slowly spread across the Grandmaster’s face. “Now that’s what I like to hear. Obsessive, slightly terrifying confidence!” He waved his hand. “Go on, then. Find my champion, and I uh... what’d I promise? Oh! Oh yes, I’ll make you the second richest, most powerful person on all of Sakaar.” 

The woman dipped her head. “I will return with your Champion, and Tony Stark’s head.” With that, she turned, passed Topaz with her head held high, and strode out of the room. Her hunt began. 

It didn’t matter how dangerous this Champion was. It didn’t matter how far they went. Where all other hunters will fail... 

Nebula always finds her target. 


	7. Killer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, sorry for the hiatus on this! I had the worst writers block! Hopefully we'll be returning to our regular scheduled programming now :)

As their fourth day of travel began, Tony worried things might be awkward, after their little spat. Worried that Loki might be more wary or hostile. Yet, as they fell into their same routine as they had the days before, everything seemed to have resumed as normal. They had their breakfast of jerky and cheese, yawning through the morning doziness before packing up camp and heading out on their way. Tony had tried to get Loki to don a shield vest after what happened yesterday, but the man shrugged and said he didn’t need one. Tony internally disagreed with that, but decided not to argue, for the sake of keeping the peace. The air was relaxed between them, and Loki chatted with him casually occasionally as he always did. It was like nothing had happened. Hell, he might even believe yesterday was nothing more than a nightmare if he couldn’t see those dark purple, finger-shaped bruises on Loki’s neck. Though he still intended to stay on Loki’s good side best he could, Tony was deeply relieved. He willed their luck to hold, and hoped for a calm and relatively uneventful day of travel today. 

But that’s the thing about hoping on Sakaar. It’s like the planet would say, ‘Oh, you want this? Wouldn't it be funny if I gave you the opposite thing? Hilarious, right? I’m such a comedian.’ And it wonders why it doesn’t get any tourism. 

They’d been walking for hours in the hot sun, quiet because the stifling heat was making them a bit irritable and sluggish, and talking was far too much work. Tony was at the head, feet crunching in the dirt, the Iron Man and DUM-E at either side. The trash piles out here were less picked through than some of the ones closer to town, and it was hard for Tony not to fall into that rabbit hole of scavenging; but he knew once he found an interesting thing, he’d be following a trail of treats and before they knew it, the day would be over and they’d have failed to put the distance between them and Sakaar City they intended to. So Tony did his best to keep his eyes forward, his vision tunneled, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. 

Loki, on the other hand, was distracted often. By some shiny thing in the trash, or by the animals rummaging around in it. He kept getting behind to look at something, and then having to jog to catch back up to the group. Tony wanted to tell him to stay with them, but he was afraid his heat-sourced irritability would come out in his voice, and he didn’t want to anger Loki by being short with him. 

It was one of those times when Loki had gotten a little behind that Tony suddenly heard a crash behind him. 

He whirled around, instantly on edge, and looked wildly to see where the noise had come from. The reflex in him expected to find another bounty hunter. To his shock, rather, he realized he was looking at the collapsed heap of Loki’s body a short way back, seeming to be twitching. 

“Shit!” Tony cursed and sprang into action. He ran back in Loki’s direction, the Iron Man at his heels, all devices on red alert, scanning the area around them in case the man had been shot or something. His heart pounded in his chest as he skid to a stop and threw himself down at Loki’s side. “Loki! Fucking hell, what’s happening?!” 

The man was on his back in the particulate sand, arms splayed out, eyes wide open and rolling back as his body was wracked with tremors and convulsions. His face was twisted in pain, his breathing short and halting, and he didn’t seem aware of Tony’s presence, made no effort to respond. 

Tony pressed his hands to his own head in stress, “Fuck, fuck! JARVIS I need you to- no, no I can’t... _shit_.” Tony was panicking hard. He needed JARVIS to scan Loki to figure out what was going on, but he couldn’t get Loki’s permission to do so. He had agreed to allow a scan if he was dying, but Tony had no idea if he was dying; and if he wasn’t, was Loki going to kill him over it? 

“_Sir, I must have your permission to scan master Loki_.” JARVIS said calmly. “_A variety of things could be causing this reaction, and many of them are fatal_.” 

“Fuck.” Tony felt himself shaking as he stared at the frightening sight below him. Of Loki’s fingers rigid like claws as they trembled as though he was being electrocuted. He looked like he was in terrible pain. Tony couldn’t just let it go on. “Alright, alright! JARVIS, scan him.” 

"_Done, sir. My scans of the electrical activity in master Loki’s brain appear to indicate he is having a seizure._” 

“A seizure? Why?” Were there neurotoxins in the food? Was this some kind of electrical trap that could interfere with a technomancer? “Could it be a cybernetic part malfunction?” He hadn’t noticed any surface cybernetic parts on the man, but he had to at least have a brain chip or something. Those could do major damage upon malfunction; he’d seen it before. 

“_I do not detect any potential outside causes. I also do not detect any other toxicity, concerning health issues or pertaining injury. It may simply be epilepsy._” 

“Do seizures usually last this long? What do I do? I- is there anything we can do?” Tony felt the panic in his throat. 

“_My sources say that he should be rolled onto his side, and his head tilted back slightly to reduce airway obstruction_.” 

“A-alright.” Tony shakily leaned over Loki, and began attempting to maneuver him onto his side. The feeling of the convulsing muscles under his hands freaked him out, but eventually he managed to get the rather lightweight man onto his side, and moved to tilt his head back. “Now what?” 

“_Now all we can do is wait, sir_.” 

By now, DUM-E had rolled over to them and was hovering, as nervous as an expressionless robot can appear. Tony swallowed, staring down at Loki. He hadn’t removed his hands from his side. Some nonsense primal urge that told him it would get better if he kept his hands there, as though through simple touch he could will healing. It had already been nearly two minutes. What if it never stopped? What would Tony do then? Try to get him to a physician? They were in the middle of nowhere, and were wanted men. Even if he did manage to get Loki to someone before his brain entirely short circuited or whatever, Tony’s life at least would be forfeit. Could he be that selfless? Could he override that primal, and particularly Sakaaran trait of doing whatever it took to keep himself alive? On the other hand, could he really just leave Loki here? Helpless, dying? 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to decide, because finally the tremors began to ease. Slowly, he felt the muscles under his hands relax, his breath coming more calmly and regular, and Tony felt his own tension melt out along with it. He glanced over at Loki’s face, which had relaxed, his eyes closed now. He looked like he could have simply been taking a nap. 

“JARVIS?” Tony asked quietly. 

“_The seizure has subsided, sir. He is alright now._” 

Tony breathed out a sigh of relief. “Loki?” 

“Mmn.” The man mumbled, not moving or opening his eyes. At least he was responsive. 

“_He may need a moment to recover, sir._” 

DUM-E whirred excitedly. Tony sat back, pulling his arms to himself and running a hand through his hair, the last of the stress flowing out of him. He supposed it could have been much worse, considering where Loki had fallen. His short, choppy hair glittered with dust, but at least he hadn’t landed on any trash items that could have cut him up or poked an eye out. 

Eventually, Loki began to stir, opening his eyes a little. He shifted groggily and began moving to sit up. 

“Easy.” Tony said, taking him by the arm and helping him into a sitting position. Loki pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes again with a pained sigh. “Are you alright?” Tony asked. 

“Yes.” Loki sounded weak. DUM-E whirred and started bringing his arm forward, but Tony caught the little robot and pulled him back. 

“Not now, bud.” Tony glanced back at Loki. “What the fuck was that about?” He demanded. 

“Just a seizure.” 

“_Just _a-?! Has that happened before?” 

Loki took a deep breath, leaning back a bit to look up at the sky. “I ah... get one every few days or so.” His voice was a bit slurred and sounded drained of any energy. 

“Aaaand you didn’t fucking _warn me_?” A bit of anger rose from Tony's belly as he scrambled to get to his feet. A biproduct of such an intensely stressful situation. 

“Didn’t think to.” 

“You didn’t _think to_?!” 

Loki only shrugged. 

Tony groaned, clasping his hands behind his head. “Alright, well... do they come with a warning at least?” 

“Not really.” Loki rubbed his eye. He looked really out of it. 

Sighing frustratedly, Tony kicked at the dirt and shook his head. He knew exactly what was going to happen now. He was going to stress all the time, wondering when Loki was going to collapse on him next. What if it happened during a fight, or when he was shielding them from the drones? What if he hurt himself, or something went terribly wrong and a seizure killed him and Tony would be stuck-

“_Take a breath, sir_.” JARVIS said calmly. Tony’s heartrate had been rising. He breathed in and out slowly, calming himself. He knew stressing about it wasn’t going to do him any good. It wasn’t going to stop what he worried about from happening. All he could do is accept that this was now his reality, and do his best to prepare for potential worst-case scenarios. Something he had to remind himself often. 

Once he had himself under control, Tony leaned down and planted a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Let’s get you out of the dirt and then get some water, alright?” 

Loki nodded dazedly, and Tony took his arm to help him to his feet. The young man was shaky, so Tony opted not to let him go, wrapping an arm around his waist to steady him. He led him over to a box-shaped object and helped him sit down while JARVIS used the Iron Man to bring over a canteen. 

After he gave Loki a chance to drink and recover, Tony asked gently, “How do you feel now?” 

Loki swallowed another sip of the cool, refreshing water, feeling it rejuvenate and clear his mind. “Tired.” He answered honestly, looking down at his feet. He still sounded fatigued, but his words were less slurred. His limbs and head felt so heavy, like his muscles were little people trying to hold up a planet. “My head is... fuzzy.” _Like my cells are vibrating, the world shifting, like scattered atoms_, he thought to himself. It was always a strange feeling. Like disintegrating into countless particles floating through the air, mixing with all the other particles. Hard to hold onto one’s sense of self when you get jumbled up with all the electrons around you. 

Tony blinked and glanced at the Iron Man, which JARVIS used to shrug. “How long do the after effects usually last?” He needed to get his questions out now, so he would know what to expect if it happened again. 

“Should clear up in a few minutes.” 

“Have you... have you always had this... thing?” 

Loki glanced up thoughtfully, his green eyes vibrant in the sun. His arms rested on his knees, holding the canteen gingerly. “Started maybe 7 years ago? Used to only happen once and a while, but... over time it’s increased in frequency.” 

“Fuck, so it’s gotten worse?” 

“Over the years.” 

“What if it gets even worse still?” 

“Hope it doesn’t?” Loki shrugged. 

_ Well that’s fucking comforting. _“Has a doctor seen you about it?” It seemed like a dumb question, but Tony didn’t entirely trust the Grandmaster’s ability to coherently provide his glorified slaves with proper care.

“The Grandmaster had many of Sakaar’s top physicians in to see me.” Loki explained. “They each had their own ideas, but... they never could figure it out. Or figure out how to treat it.” 

“So you just... fucking deal with it?” Tony was shocked. “What if it happened during an arena fight?” 

“That’s only happened once, and the Grandmaster stopped my opponent with the obedience chip until I’d recovered.” Loki leaned back, capping the canteen. “It’s really not a big deal, Stark.” 

“Not a big-?! Loki, this isn’t the arena!” Tony spread his hands as he looked down at the young man seriously. “If you have a seizure during a fight with raiders, Direwolves, wild animals... they don’t have fucking _obedience chips _for a little time out while you get your legs back under you!” 

“The chances of that happening are very slim.” Loki argued. 

“With our luck, it’ll happen.” Tony grumbled. 

“Well, there’s not much we can do about that.” Loki sounded exasperated. “I should have told you, yes, and your anger is justified. But it’s not something we can do anything about. You’re either going to have to accept that, or go home.” 

“I’m not going home, Loki.” Tony pinched between his eyes and sighed. “We just... need to figure out some contingency plans, alright? Prepare for worst-case scenarios.” 

“Fair enough.” He moved to push himself up to his feet, a bit wobbly, but seemingly recovered now. He breathed in deep and let it out slow, then began swiping the sand off his clothes. “Alright, I’m good now.” 

“Are you sure?” Tony looked at him carefully. “We can sit around a while longer.” 

Loki reached up and brushed the dust from his raven hair, then adjusted the satchel across his shoulders. “I’m fine. Let’s go.” And with that, he turned and started heading away in the direction they had been going before this incident stopped them in their tracks. DUM-E immediately started following behind. 

If Loki was being honest, he wasn’t fine. He was quite far from fine. But he needed to move, needed to put his mind to something else before those tears that had sprung to his eyes betrayed any more weakness to the other man than he already had. In all honesty, Loki was quite upset right now. Over the years, a large part of him had somehow, though entirely baseless, convinced itself that the seizures were related to the city. Something in the air, the constant radio communication happening around him, something like that. That, somehow, being there had brought them on. And that once he escaped, he wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore. Everything would go back to normal, as far as it could. He always just told himself to hang on when it happened, because it wouldn’t be forever, that he just had to get out and it would stop. That part of him was so well and truly convinced that he hadn’t even considered having to tell Tony about his condition, and that seizure just now had genuinely taken him by surprise. 

His heart had fallen when he’d come to and realized what had happened. He could escape Sakaar City, he could escape slavery and the Grandmaster. But nothing would go back to the way it used to be. He’d live with this for the rest of his days, however long or short they may be. He knew that now. 

Tony gazed at Loki wistfully before shaking his head and following as well, the Iron Man at his side. As he walked, he was left wondering how exactly Loki thought he was going to survive out here all on his own. If he had a seizure during a fight, Tony was going to have to protect him, there was no way around that fact. What would Loki have done all alone? After this, he was actually starting to feel more honest in that lie about joining him to ensure he got to Eden safely. This kid was doomed without him.   


They walked at a slightly slower pace than before over the next few hours. Despite the fact that Loki had told him these seizures only happened once every few days, Tony kept a watchful eye on the man and stuck close just in case, his paranoia on high alert. Loki seemed tired and twitchy, not quite as recovered as he’d tried to convince Tony he was. It only got worse as time went by. Tony thought to take a glance at those health scans from JARVIS, and was quite shocked by what he’d seen. His entire nervous system was in haywire. He couldn’t believe Loki was even _ walking _right now. 

Tony knew the man needed to rest and recover entirely if he wanted to restore the stamina he’d previously had, but Loki seemed determined to continue. Likely to prove that this condition of his was nothing to worry about, that it wasn’t an inconvenience. He didn’t need to prove anything to Tony. He was impressed enough by his strength in general, never-mind the fact that he dealt with this condition like it was nothing more than an egg allergy. And like Loki had said, this was simply something to accept and deal with. He wasn’t proving anything by powering through it like this. Tony wished he knew how to convince Loki of that without risking offending him. But then... he considered, perhaps Loki was trying to prove it to himself as well. 

At one point, Tony admitted to Loki that he’d had JARVIS scan him. He knew this was one thing he shouldn’t lie about, shouldn't keep to himself. Extending that branch was risky, but it would aid in making him appear more honest. Still, he wasn’t overly surprised when Loki stopped in his tracks and turned on him, anger flashing in those green eyes. Tony quickly spoke to smooth his ruffled feathers. 

“There's nothing in the scans that say anything about your powers. We only looked at potentially afflicted areas. I’ll give you full access to my database so you can look them over. You can delete them yourself when you’re satisfied.” He said calmly. “JARVIS said you could have been dying, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.” 

“Dying? Oh, _please_.” Loki snarled. 

“It _looked _really bad, and there was no other way for us to know. You didn’t tell me about it beforehand, how could I have known it was just a seizure?” Tony argued. It was a valid point, pinning the fault on Loki. The man seemed surprised at that statement. “You could have been in some kind of toxic shock or having a cybernetic malfunction for all I knew.” 

“Hmph.” Loki scowled and turned away. He had him there, but he wasn’t going to admit it. 

“Are we cool?” Tony pressed. 

“Whatever.” Loki stalked off, hands in his pockets grouchily. 

Loki had to know he had no right to be angry about this, and was likely feeling foolish. That was the best Tony was going to get, and he would take it. He didn’t need a thank you or an apology. He just needed Loki not to kill him. He was happy to give the man his space while he cooled off. They continued on their way, more quiet than before. 

After a while of silence, JARVIS spoke up into Tony’s earpiece. “_It could not have been a cybernetic malfunction anyway, sir._” 

Tony blinked. “What do you mean?” 

“_He has no cybernetic devices._” 

Tony blinked, shocked. “How the fuck is that possible? Not a single piece? Not even to _ see _the AR-Scape?” Even the most minimalist of body modificationists had to have a piece to see the AR-Scape and manipulate it. It was impossible to survive on Sakaar without it. That was how all transactions took place. There was no such thing as physical money on Sakaar. 

“_Nothing, sir._” 

“Jeez. Is he some kind of Antinetic?” Tony had never met one personally, but he’d heard plenty about the tiny district composing of a few rundown buildings that a group of fervent Antinetics held in the outskirts of Sakaar City. They didn’t believe in any form of bodily modification, especially cybernetics and DNA hacks, but it did include not eating anything they deemed ‘unnatural’. Unfortunately, on Sakaar, ‘natural’ food stuff meant meat, algae and fungi imbued with radiation and toxic metals. Antinetics never lived very long. 

“_I think it is more likely that he would be denied use of the AR-Scape by the Grandmaster, considering he was a slave._” 

“Oh... shit, right.” 

Tony quietly thought about that for a while. This made things a little more complicated regarding the health scans. Loki couldn’t exactly see or manipulate them if he didn’t have a cybernetic part. Was that why he wasn’t pushing the issue? Tony decided to extend another olive branch to Loki, hoping to strengthen his trust with honesty. 

“JARVIS told me he didn’t detect any cybernetic parts on you during the scan.” Tony said softly when he’d stepped up to walk beside Loki. They walked side-by-side at a leisurely pace for now. 

“What of it?” Loki’s voice was clipped, and he didn’t look at Tony. 

“I could fix you with an eye piece and an AR-Scape manipulator.” Tony offered. “I install all my own pieces. I’m good with neural connections.” 

“Stark, if technomancy is good for anything, it’s fucking up electronics.” Loki sounded amused now, glancing sideways at him. “Why would I want a glitchy eyeball?” 

Tony blinked, the realization hitting him. “Oh. Ohhhh... Shit, I didn’t think of that. Hmm... maybe I can think of another way to help you see the AR-Scape then-” 

“I can see the AR-Scape.” 

“You... huh?” Tony stared at him in confusion. 

Loki turned to face the man and crossed his arms, shrugging. “My mind converts data in the air just like any of your cybernetic parts. Not all technomancers can do it, but I have no issue accessing the digital world.” 

Tony was honestly quite stunned. 

“I can see anything your eye can see.” Loki went further. “Manipulate anything your wrist implant can manipulate.” 

“I just... jeez, I had no idea that was even possible.” Tony’s eyes were wide with wonder. Gods he wished he could understand how all of that worked. How he wished he could take scans of Loki’s abilities and pour over them, see how he managed any of it. “So... you can see this?” He swiped his hand over his wrist implant and brought up a 3-dimensional image of a Sakaaran scavenger bird that looked something like a mutant raven in a purple translucent skin. 

Rather than responding verbally, Loki stepped forward and reached out with his hands, pulling back so that the bird floated between them. Tony’s eyebrows went up when he saw Loki’s eyes glow slightly, and the raven took on a new life. Vibrant, iridescent feathers materialized from the air, the black, beady eye sparkled with life and it stretched out its wings. It leapt into the air and soared around them, movements so natural that one might believe this was a real bird in the sky. 

Tony watched the bird in absolute wonder, eyes wide, feeling a grin cross his face. “This is so fucking _cool._” He glanced back down, over to Loki, hoping to see something that might help him understand how he was doing this. But to his surprise, Loki had quite turned his attention elsewhere, gazing off far past Tony’s shoulder, wonder evident in his face. 

Tony blinked and turned to see what the man was looking at, on edge for a moment, before he spotted it.

A massive shape in the far distance, a size nearly incomprehensible for something that was actually moving, almost as large as a mountain. It moved so slowly you wondered if it actually was moving after all, drifting like a giant cloud across the landscape. Its lower half seemed to fade into the atmosphere, and the entire figure had an amount of translucency to it. Dark gray with a hint of cosmic blue, with almost a birdlike head. A hundred wings flowed down its body, and its feathered flesh was embedded with a thousand eyes. Staring and unblinking. It was mouthless, and silent as it drifted along, lonely as it was far in the distance. The falling garbage passed through it like nothing. 

It had been some time since Tony had last seen a Colossus, and it was no less eerie than the dozens of other times he’d experienced such a sight over his lifetime. 

“Gods, those things give me the creeps.” Tony shivered. “I know they’re just AR images, but something about them feels so... supernatural. Alien.” 

“I love them.” Loki said softly, not taking his eyes from the monster in the distance. “Each one is so unique and beautiful in its own way.” 

“I don’t know about beautiful.” Tony sniffed. “Unique is a word for it. So you’ve seen them before?” 

“Now and then, through my cell window, and before I was captured.” Loki had reached down now and was rummaging through his satchel. “Can we take a 10-minute break?” 

“Uh, yeah of course.” Tony looked at Loki quizzically as the man took out the sketchpad from his workshop. 

“I liked to study them.” Loki explained, wandering over to a large, metallic object on the ground and taking a seat, placing the sketchpad in his lap and taking out the pencil before flipping to the first clean page. “I wish I’d thought to take my own sketchbook from the Palace. I’d sketched dozens of them.” 

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to replace them.” Tony said kindly as he wandered over to the Iron Man and began to rummage through their storage, pulling out a snack and some pieces of junk for disassembling. “I’ve never seen the same Colossus twice, but I imagine we’ll be seeing many of them on our travels.” 

“I hope so.” Loki said absent-mindedly as he began to sketch. 

The pair of them sat and rested for a while, Tony chewing on some jerky as he tinkered with the parts he’d picked up along the way. He’d found enough to start retrofitting to their guns, fine-tuning them and perfecting them, adding new mods. Tony never could resist tinkering. There was no such thing as a perfect machine, especially in a world where new technologies and materials were constantly appearing through the gates. They were always in a state of flux as the ‘perfect additions’ appeared over time. 

It was as he was fiddling with the electronic sights on the rifle that he thought of something. 

“Hey, Lokes...” 

“It’s Loki.” The man didn’t look up from his nearly-completed sketch diagram that Tony had peeked over at now and then. It was coming along beautifully; he’d really captured the giant’s essence and seemed to have an understanding of its parts at a dissection level of detail. Tony was impressed. But not just at his skill. Watching those fine, dainty fingers work was absolutely mesmerizing. 

“Y’know how you said technomancers and cybernetic parts was a bad mix?” Tony started, glancing away from the man’s hands and up at his face instead. 

“Aye.” 

“So could you, like... fuck up my cybernetic parts too?” It was a dumb question with an obvious answer. If the man could fix his electronics as he had after that EMP attack, he could scramble them too. Never mind rip them out electromagnetically, as he’d done many times before. 

“Of course.” 

“Then how come you didn’t, back at the Palace?” 

“Because you were helping me escape?” Loki raised an eyebrow, glancing at him. 

“Let me rephrase; how did you differentiate my electronics from all the guards around us? It looked like an uncontrolled energy burst that came out of you, but I didn’t suffer anything more than a bruised tailbone.” 

“Easy. It wasn’t an uncontrolled energy burst.” 

“So you have control over energy like that at that level? You can actually target that many cybernetic parts at once?” Tony was impressed. 

“It was less of targeting many cybernetic parts and more of locking onto yours and ensuring the energy burst didn’t hit you.” Loki explained, looking back out at the horizon. The Colossus had moved since they had sat down, but not very far at all. It likely wouldn’t be out of sight until tomorrow. “As long as I’m in control of myself, I have no problem differentiating.” 

“But you can’t differentiate if you had a personal cybernetic part.” 

Loki looked up thoughtfully. “That’s a little different. Cybernetic parts are directly implanted into the nervous system, disrupting the inner flow. I have no problem controlling the energy outside my body, but it’s difficult to channel within. It’s different for each technomancer, though. I knew one that could control the electrical flow from within a technomancer’s body, but she couldn’t channel electricity outside of a body.” 

“Huh, that’s interesting.” Tony was truly excited to learn more about the world of technomancy, he had a hard time keeping it out of his voice. He wanted to sound somewhat casual and disinterested, lest Loki might think he was trying to gain secret technomancer information. “Did that have a use?” 

“She helped young technomancers learn to channel their abilities. Unblocked stuck flows.” Loki was looking off into the distance again. His voice had a warmth to it, like he was remembering something fond. “Hard to explain to someone who isn’t a technomancer.” 

“Was she your teacher?” Tony asked softly. 

“She helped a lot of children through the frustrating first phase of technomancy manifesting. I was just one of-.” Loki suddenly stopped and stiffened. He opened his mouth, but before he got a chance to say anything, JARVIS spoke up. 

“_Multiple heat signatures inbound._” 

They all leapt up in an instant, Loki tossing his sketchpad into his bag, Tony throwing the torn-apart rifle at the Iron Man and grabbing a handgun instead. “What are we looking at, JARVIS?” Tony asked. 

“_A large group of humanoids coming from the south. __Currently at the _ _ edge of my peripheral. __I am unsure if we have been spotted__, as I detect no radio activity. __I suggest we move quickly._” 

“Lets go.” Tony confirmed, clicking the safety off the gun and starting off. He glanced back to make sure everyone, including DUM-E, was right behind him. “Give me a path, JARVIS.” 

“_On your display_.” 

They ran in a tight pack as silently as they could manage, keeping their feet to the soft sand and avoiding garbage as they went. Loki had unsnapped the solid pieces of his boots and stored them in his bag, and now he moved so silently and fluidly that not even Tony could hear his footfalls beside him. JARVIS led them on a route veering away from the approaching pack, leading northeast, hoping to find them shelter to allow the group to pass by. 

They went on like this for a while, until Loki suddenly spoke up. “I sense more to the west.” He whispered urgently. “A lot of them.” 

“_Yes, I’m picking them up now. Readjusting route._” 

“Fuck, they know we’re here.” Tony said anxiously. “They’re trying to surround us.” 

“Aye, and we’re barely keeping ahead of them.” Loki agreed. “We need to move faster.” 

DUM-E whirred anxiously, rolling along so close to Tony’s feet that he had to consciously avoid tripping over him. 

“_Shall we set__ for an emergency boost__, sir?_” Asked JARVIS. 

“There’s no way we can rocket out of here with everything we have.” Tony answered. “Carrying all our stuff, plus you’ll have to carry Loki.” 

“Pardon?” Loki didn’t understand what the pair of them were talking about. 

“The Iron Man has a boost pack for getting out of hairy situations, but we won’t get far with all our stuff.” Tony explained. “They’ll just catch up again.” 

“What if we left everything?” 

“We’re too far from any town, we won’t make it without our stuff. Plus the boost eats up a ton of power-” 

“_Getting blips from the north and east now_.” 

“Fuck!” Tony skid to a halt and whipped his head around in all directions, as the heat signature visualizations appeared in his AR-Scape, despair filling his veins. “This was a trap, they’ve been corralling us like fucking boaval!” 

Loki reached down and pulled his dagger sheathes from his thigh holsters, his back to Tony. “We’re going to have to fight.” His voice sounded a hell of a lot calmer than Tony felt. 

Tony did his best to calm his breathing as he gazed out into the horizon, the heat signatures stretching all around him and getting closer, reminding himself of the fight back at the Grandmaster’s Palace. There were countless guards, and Loki had taken them all down in a single blow. And Tony could handle himself in a fight. He had nothing to worry about. 

“JARVIS, toss our stuff in that tub over there. DUM-E, stealth mode.” Tony took charge, holstering his gun and heading over for the adjacent trash pile. “We’re activating battle mode. They think they have us overwhelmed, but we’ll be ready for them.” 

Loki watched curiously as the robots obeyed. JARVIS brought the carrying sacks away for safe stashing and DUM-E retracted his parts and hid himself well before the Iron Man returned to Tony’s side. It was fascinating to watch as the power suit opened up like a doll coming apart at the seams, each part moving to make room like a snake unhinging its jaw. Tony stepped up, turned and backed inside as the machine engulfed him, resealing itself and compacting back down to its original humanoid form around its maker. The skeletal clasps of the right arm latched around Tony’s prosthetic, melding together seamlessly. The man stood taller in this suit, posture of a warrior, far more fearsome now than as the stocky mechanic in a sleeveless. Loki hadn’t felt afraid in battle in many years, but now he felt vulnerable in comparison as he stood back to back with this metal gladiator. 

“You ready for this?” Tony asked, his voice sounding deeper and metallic through the suit’s speaker. The sound made Loki shiver involuntarily. 

“Made ready.” Loki confirmed, turning his eyes to where he sensed the first of the ambush would soon appear, flicking his blade hilts down to activate the plasma. He was still weary in his bones from his episode earlier, but soon adrenaline would fill his veins and his body would forget his exhaustion for as long as he needed it to. 

Within moments, figures began to appear through the warbling horizon, around the trash piles. Dozens of them flooding into the clearing. The gravel crunching under their many boots in a cacophony of gritty echoes, metal objects kicked aside to make room. The sun glaring as they all strode forward like a wave of worn fabric, brandishing thrown-together weapons of all shapes and sizes; spears, forks and knives alongside makeshift guns. Their ratty clothing billowed in the breeze, and those who weren’t wearing masks and goggles had determined expressions evident on their dirty faces. Dozens of hungry, fearful, mad eyes. 

“Oh... fuck.” Tony’s heart dropped when he saw them. 

“What?” Loki had relaxed a little upon seeing their disheveled appearances and lack of refined weaponry and didn’t understand Tony’s worsened distress. These were clearly amateurs that had no idea what they were doing, it would be an easy victory. 

“I know these guys.” The man groaned, lowering his hands from their fighting stance. “They’re scrappers. I grew up with a lot of them.” 

Loki blinked back at him in surprise. “Can you convince them to leave us alone?” As easy as he expected this battle to be, settling this without violence would of course be preferable. It would be less of a toll on his already-tired body, at the very least. 

“Probably not.” Tony said honestly, eyes dark as he lifted the face mask. He knew their desperation. Knew it from experience. When you’re that hungry, and a banquet that great gets shoved under your nose, you’d throw your own brother under the bus for a taste. “But I’m damn well gonna try. Just stay behind me for now.” 

Loki nodded, but he did not lower his blades as he eyed the gathering crowd warily. They flooded in and blocked all escape routes with their bodies, holding their makeshift weapons threateningly, yet awkwardly. Muttering to each other, keeping their gazes fixed on Loki. The clumsy noise of their unpracticed numbers filling the clearing, accentuated by the crashing noises of garbage falling around them. 

“Tony.” One with a terribly scarred face and grimy, wispy hair growled. The man stepped forward a few feet beyond the rest, most of which glanced back and forth with unsure eyes. He held a large, intimidating pistol casually in his hands, trained on his targets. 

“Jimmy.” Tony nodded at him, taking a side step forward as well, blocking the man’s line of shot to Loki. “This doesn’t have to end badly. We can talk this out.” 

“You boys got a considerable bounty on your heads.” Jimmy tilted his head a bit. Pale gray eyes sharp as a hawk’s. “Not much more to talk about.” Tony felt a pang of anxiety spread through him. What if one of them said something that indicated Tony was more than an unknown helper of Loki’s escape? He had to talk his way through this, but he had to be very careful not to prompt more information out of them that Loki might hear. That Tony’s personal bounty was, partially, somewhat separate from this whole situation. 

“Come on, Jimmy.” Tony spread his hands, “I’ve known you since we were, what, 3? We’re buddies!” 

“Not for 40mil we ain’t.” 

“Godsdamn, 40mil?! Can I turn myself in?” 

“If you wanna go easy, we got no want to hurt you.” Jimmy promised, voice disinterested. “Course, the alternative is we can break your legs.” 

“So what, you’re all gonna share?” Tony scoffed. “40mil ain’t a lot split… how many ways?” 

“That 40mil’s just on _ your _head, Stark.” Another man grinned, teeth full of metal. Tony shivered, really hoping Loki didn't think too hard on that statement. The other man gestured with his head at Loki. “You’re pocket lining. Scrawny there’ll make us kings.” 

“I’m not scrawny, I’m lithe.” Loki grumbled under his breath. Tony shot him a look to stay quiet. 

“Grandmaster promised we’d all get scrapping licenses, too.” Jimmy added. “Our pick o’ the pile.” 

Tony snorted, “Oh, please. The second you turn us over, he’ll sick his direwolves on the lot of you.” 

“Will not, we have a deal.” 

“You think someone like the Grandmaster is gonna honor his end of a deal when he gets what he wants?” Tony reasoned, voice hard. “He’s got no reason to let ya’ll live, let alone get paid. No one’s gonna bat an eyelash if none of you come back from the wastes.” 

“We’ll be heroes of the city!” A gruff woman shouted. “We bringin’ the Grand Champion back, they’ll all be grateful!” 

“You’re mewrats to them.” Tony felt his face getting heated. “They let you bring them goods and don’t care what you did to get it to them. They get their Champion back, maybe they throw you a party, but in a few days no one’s gonna remember. No one’s gonna remember your dirty-ass faces in the first place.” 

Loki stared at the back of his head. Was this Tony’s desperation? His voice was full of emotion, of remembering. He sounded like he was speaking from experienced feelings. 

Jimmy took a slow step forward, others at his back following suit. “I told you, Tony. 40mil. Nothing to talk about.” His low voice ground out. 

“Come on.” Tony took a step back, voice taking on a desperation now. “Alex? Tina? Ollie, we went on a run together last week! Jeff, we’re like brothers!” 

“Nothing personal, Tony.” One of the men said as he lifted a spear in his hands, flipping a switch to electrify the end. 

Loki sighed and twirled his daggers in his hands, rolling his shoulders to ready himself. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.” 

Tony was silent for a moment in defeat, watching the slowly approaching mob. “Don’t kill anyone.” He muttered just loud enough for Loki to hear. 

Loki raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Seriously? Stark, there’s at least 50 of them.” 

Tony glanced back, meeting Loki’s gaze, eyes hard. “They’re not bad people. They’re very, very desperate; courtesy of the Grandmaster’s fucked up governing. They don’t deserve to die.” 

Loki blinked back, face slowly softening. “Alright, I’ll... okay.” He lowered his plasma blades and sheathed them. He was going to have to focus on using his powers if he hoped to merely stun. 

“Stun setting on the handgun, remember?” Tony said, clicking his own suit’s guns over to stun with a flick of his wrists. 

“Right.” Loki reached down and pulled out the laser handgun from his holster. 

He barely had time to flip the setting when the floodgates burst. 

With battle cries, the crowd charged. Weapons of every type brandished, they fell on the pair. Bright stun lasers from both sides rained down. Tony’s suit absorbed each like they were nothing but light, and Loki’s magnetic shield held true. They both returned fire, but only managed to stun a few before the ground was physically on them. Loki barely avoided a rusty pronged spear diving straight for his leg, leaping over it and landing a hard kick to the wielder’s chest. He couldn’t help the flash of anger that burst through him. What was the moron thinking? The Grandmaster obviously wanted him alive and unharmed, but it seemed these inexperienced fools would be letting their panic dictate their attacks. He could not expect them to hold back. 

Loki grabbed the man while he was off balance and shot him directly in the chest with the stun gun, dropping him deadweight and leaping over the fallen form just as an electrical orb burst past where he had just been. He whipped his head around as another electrical orb shot towards him, and he grabbed it out of the air with his powers, pushing his arms forward to send it back to its originator. He heard a cry of pain as the woman holding the launcher spazzed out from the electricity coursing through her body and fell to the ground. 

Tony shouted at each and every person as he fought them, shouted at them to stop this, to turn back, that it wasn’t worth it. He shot off stun rounds and fought people hand-to-hand, easily overpowering them with the strength his suit lent him. Their blades and spears merely scratching the paint on the surface of the Iron Man as they tried to hit him. His AR-Scape was haywire, trying to pinpoint every attacker’s location and give him the best course of action. The scrappers were uncoordinated as it got, which made it impossible to detect any form of patterns in their attack. The noise of their shouting was overwhelming his audio sensors, and JARVIS was struggling to tune them out in favor of useful sounds. 

Some of them tried to wrap electrical ropes around him, around the legs of his suit. The energy made the electronic parts of those local areas scrambled for a moment, sparking and stinging Tony within, but JARVIS worked quickly to counteract by powering off specific circuits as the electricity coursed to avoid surges and burnouts. Temporarily took away the weight support, making the metal boots heavy and clunky, but Tony managed, and they were back online in moments as he broke free of the rope with ease. He grabbed the rope with his gloves and yanked, pulling several people forward and bowling them over. He shot them all with a jumper stun shot and turned back to face the mob throwing more blades and curses at him. 

These scrappers were desperate. They weren’t afraid to throw their bodies at their targets. Mob them by any means necessary. Not an ounce of caution. That made them far more dangerous, in this instance, than any coordinated and strategical army. There was nothing more powerful than raw, primal desperation. Nothing. 

The scrapper army was dropping like flies, but not fast enough. They were everywhere. Weapons everywhere. Hands everywhere. Hands grabbing at Loki's body. He spun and pushed the bodies away, forced away metal weapons as they came for him, trying to get stun shots in, trying to overwhelm their cybernetic parts with non-fatal energy bursts; but it took too much concentration, and there were just so many. Too many. One cut him deep on the torso and he gasped in a silent, agonized scream, concentration broken, falling to one knee, instinctively grasping at the wound on his torso. That wrong move left Loki vulnerable, and now the countless hands were on him, countless voices shouting in his ears. Pushing him to the ground, grabbing his gun out of his hand, grabbing his clothes, holding his arms down. Blades at his throat, electrical ropes burning the flesh of his skin. Guns to his head, dirt and blood in his mouth and nose. He felt the cut on his torso spilling with warm blood and he cried out in fear and pain. 

Tony fought to look over, seeing Loki was in trouble, and struggled against the bodies trying to hold him back. “Hold on, Loki! I’m coming!” He managed to rip one of his arms from the grip of several hands and get two stun shots off before he was dogpiled again, electrical ropes tying one of his arms back. His suit was strong, many times the strength of a human’s, but he was fighting the strength of many humans. Many desperate humans that would rather tear their muscles in effort than let him go. This was life or death for them. A tunnel. There was nothing else. 

Light and sound and pain and fear and _blood_, so many hands, the crushing weight of bodies, burning electricity and _panic_, _panic setting in. _Loki was hyperventilating but he couldn’t breathe, the weight of the arms holding him down, the stench of their bodies. He squeezed his eyes shut against the flashes of electricity, against the dust and blood. Flashbacks of all the times he’d been held down coursing through his head, the dust filling his lungs, gods he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t see, too much noise, too many hands, _stop touching me just let me go let me go let me go! _

The cry that burst out of that writhing mass of people was that of a dying animal. A primal howl that sent shivers through all in the vicinity, made ears ring. But before anyone could set a thought to the danger they were in, it was far too late. A burst of blinding light exploded out from the center of the pile. Bodies flung in every direction, smoking, the shockwave sending them far. It hit Tony with a shout of surprise and bowled him over with the rest of them, electricity coursing through his suit and sending his AR-scape bursting with glitching, spastic images. He hit the ground with a metallic thud and a sharp shot of pain, and everything went dark. 

When Tony came-to with a gasp, the whole world was too bright, and the sharp sound of ears ringing jabbed through the muffled silence. The tingling of electricity left on the hairs of his arms tickled. It was silent, dead silent. The only sounds that of metal burning and dust drifting down onto his suit. His cybernetic eye was down, as was his arm and power core. The only thing he could see out of his natural eye was a blurry sky through the eye port of his suit’s mask, the fiery edges of a cosmic gateway somewhere outside his peripheral. His body throbbed with awful, bruising pain, and his limbs felt heavy in this motionless metal cocoon. 

“JARVIS?” Tony called out in a panic. 

There was no answer. His suit was dead as a brick, his cybernetics as well. The only thing still working was his cybernetic heart, pumping deep inside his body and protected from any form of outside tampering, running on reserves while his arc reactor was out. He would need to reboot the reactor soon, or he’d go into cardiac arrest. Tony breathed slowly, trying to quell his panic and quiet the whirling of thoughts going through his head to focus on a singular task. He needed to get out of this suit. Which meant he had to release it manually; a failsafe he was glad he built into it for this exact scenario. 

Tony took a deep breath and began twisting his right arm until the stub came free of the prosthetic. Shifting in this tight squeeze, he brought his shoulder up within the suit and pressed backwards at a switch, flipping it back and forth three times. This caused the suit’s locks to release, and he quickly reached up with his left arm and began tearing the pieces from his body. He pat down a small electrical fire on his leg piece until it was snuffed, leaving scorched metal behind. 

When enough weight had been removed, he ripped off the mask and pushed himself up to a sitting position, breathing hard and glancing around. 

What he saw when his eye adjusted was... absolutely shocking. 

It looked like a bomb went off. Charred dirt streaks bursting out from a central point. Half-burned, smoking bodies everywhere. Melted eyeballs leaking out of skulls. Bits of fabric and burst weapons. The acrid scent of smoking electronics and burning flesh hit his nostrils, now that his mask was gone. In seconds he was on his knees, retching onto the ground. 

When he’d recovered his bowels, Tony shakily shed the rest of his suit parts and got to his feet, trying hard to swallow his panic and revolt and horror at the idea that these bodies around him, these lifeless and scorched beyond recognition bodies, were people he had known all of his life. His friends. His family, in some ways. People like him. Lived the same life he did. Never given a bone, had to fight to get anything in life, given an unfair stick in an unjust world. Just trying to survive, just like him. Now cut short. A lifelong struggle ended, just like that. One burst, snuffed out forever. 

“Loki?” Tony ground out. His voice was hoarse and gravelly, and burned with bile. There was no response, so Tony forced himself to look around. He felt faint and dizzy, like he was wandering numbly through a dream. Ears still ringing, making his footfalls muffled. 

He found the young man huddled against a rusty barrel, curled up with his arms tight around himself, eyes wide with shock and glazed over. He was trembling, dirty and bloodied, covered in cuts and burns. His shirt was soaked with dark blood on the torso region. He looked like he was frozen in absolute shock. 

But Tony didn’t care. The moment he saw Loki, rage boiled up from his stomach and spilled over before he could stop it. 

“How... _why_?” He cried out, feeling warm tears at his eyes, threatening to spill over. 

Loki’s trembling face slowly turned over to look at Tony, eyes beginning to focus once again. Face still blank. 

“You... you fucking... you _killed _them.” Tony pressed his hand to his mouth as the horror threatened to overwhelm him again. “Oh _gods_, you killed them _all_.” His legs gave out and he dropped to his knees in the sand. “Jimmy, Ollie, Jeff- I... my friends-” 

“They overwhelmed me!” Loki’s voice was hoarse as well and high with panic. “I couldn’t- couldn’t control my-” 

“I told you not to fucking kill _anyone_!” Tony practically shouted, trembling with shock, voice shrill with tears. “And you killed _everyone_!” 

Loki forced himself shakily to his feet, eyes glistening. “Well, you should have fucking known better, then!” His voice was enraged now. “Killing is what I fucking _do_, Stark! It’s the only... killing is the only thing I can...” Loki swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. His throat felt like it was swelling up. He couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t say any more. He turned and marched away from the despaired man, striding past bodies as he went. 

Tony didn’t try to stop him. Just sat there on his knees, gazing out at nothing. A hollow feeling in his heart. A despair that filled him with emptiness. 

He was left alone in that field of the dead. Left with nothing and silence. 


End file.
